A Break Before Dawn
by alphabetty
Summary: The Cullen's stand against the Volturi became a battle, Alice and Jasper never returned, and Bella died. Where do vampires go after they die? Let's find out. Rated for vampire on vampire violence. AE to BD
1. Chapter 1

**I'm pretty new to the site, but I've been inspired by so many of the amazing writers here and at FanFiction to try my hand at one of my own. Of special inspiration to me are the talented Emily Bowden and OCDJen. Thank you for keeping me up late reading ladies. I have a general framework of how this story will play out, but fiction is a fickle mistress and she does what she likes. Any comments (praising or outraged), suggestions (plot twists or character additions) or general words of good cheer would be appreciated. Thanks.**

**All characters and original settings belong to SM. I simply borrow them to paint pretty pictures.**

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**Chapter One**

I woke up, stretched my arms and opened my eyes to an oddly hazy, but familiar room. Everything was out of focus, and my sense of smell seemed to be lacking its usual vampire edge. I could tell if Charlie has shaved in the morning before he even opened the door of his cruiser to walk the final 10 feet to the Cullen's door.

"What's happening to me and where am I?" I asked out loud to an empty room. My voice sounded strange too. I hadn't noticed until after I'd spoken that the small room I awakened in was almost completely silent. The realization hit me quickly: I woke up?

The last time I'd woken up had been months before, on my first morning as a vampire, or my last birthday as Alice called it. But everything was so clear and sharp then that it scared me. I could see each individual grain in the wooden floor and every tiny imperfection in the glass window of Carlisle's study. It wasn't only the last time I'd woken up, but also the last time I'd slept. The last time I would ever sleep. Like food, water and other human needs, as a vampire I no longer needed sleep, or even rest.

Nor did I need to stretch. I did occasionally, but it was just another part of the human facade we all performed daliy to stay in Forks with Jacob and Charlie, and avoid any unnecessary attention. Every muscle in my body was ready in a sixteenth of a second to spring into action, whether I was hunting or playing with Renesmee.

My brain felt clouded, like it was full of dust and cobwebs. I was usually capable of thinking about one hundred different things in great detail at one time, another perk of being a vampire. I laughed as I shook my head and blinked my eyes in hopes of clearing out the hazy. I imagined how hard Edward would laugh if he saw me like this.

Edward?

Where was he and why couldn't I even smell him? The slightly familiar, if not empty room held a few faint smells, one of the jogged my brain as the muted version of Edward's sweet scent that I could take in before my change. The others reminded me of food and cleaning products.

The small room held no furniture, but the angles and color of the walls, the placement of the windows and even the inside of the closed door felt familiar to me. It certainly wasn't in my cottage, or Edward's room at the Cullen house.

I raked my brain trying to remember where I'd been and what I'd been doing before to begin figuring out where I was now. In a flash I remembered, and then wished I hadn't. The battle against the Volturri.

Aro had invited his brothers, Marcus and Caius to council with him. In the same moment Jane launched her attack. I felt a sharp force as her crippling power hit my shield, followed my several smaller volleys. The first strike had been directed at all of us. In the half-second it took Jane to realize we were all still standing unaffected my her power, she launched individual attacks on Edward, Carlisle and Eleazar. I realized my strength was enough to hold her at bay, so looked up at her tiny form and grinned widely. Cruel little Jane lost the first round. Probably for the first time in history if all the stories my family told were true.

Her brother Alec tried his hand next.

"Does anyone see it yet?" Edward asked. "Alec's gift is slower than Jane's. It floats toward its victims."

I searched the ground for it and final noticed it barely two feet in front of the Volturi line. The creeping thread of smoke wound its way across the field at a maddeningly slow pace. I had no idea what it would do to my shield, or for that matter, whether my shield could repel it or any physical attack.

We all watched and waited as the terrible mist advanced. Each pair of golden or blood red eyes locked on it, staring like our lives depended on our views of the mist. They did.

While we watched the mist, someone watched us.

The warning came to late. Edward's attention was strained from trying to listen to the many internal voices of the Volturri, their guard, the witnesses and our friends. It wasn't until Demetri slipped under my shield that Edward noticed his thoughts.

"Bella!" He shouted, "He's coming for you!"

"Protect Bella!" Carlisle yelled.

"Blind him! Shock him! Help Bella!" various members of my family yelled out in the confusion.

Zafrina and Benjamin were at my sides and closest to the attack, but under my shield they could not harm him without harming all of us. Zafrina's blinding spell would leave us all in the dark and unable to maneuver. Benjamin's ability to cause a whirlwind or open the Earth might shake us all into his chasm.

The huge russet wolf at my side turned in the seconds I took to process these thoughts. He shook his back gently so my small daughter landed softly in the snow at my feet. In the same fluid motion he leaped at the hulking vampire. I picked Renesmee up and kissing her forehead, I passed her to Rosalie. If they breached our defenses again I would be the obvious target. For the first time in her short life, I didn't want Renesmee anywhere near me.

Demetri's key placement within the inner circle of the Volturi Guard spoke to his strength, fighting skills and cunning. He was always at the spear point of any attack, and always survived to fight another day.

As Jacob's teeth were about to connect with Demetri's arm, the vampire backhanded him across the snow. Renesmee covered her eyes when Jake let one small whimper escape his teeth as he skidded across the snow. He was back on his feet in seconds, with Seth and Leah joining him at his flanks. The three wolves closed in on him slowly, circling. Seth and Leah came around his sides while Jake never slowed his advance straight for Demetri. They left him nowhere to run.

Demetri bared his teeth at the wolves and let loose a vicious growl from deep within his body. He would not go down without a fight, but neither would we.

The wolves closed in and Emmett, never one to be left out of a good brawl, leaped hissing onto Demetri's back. The unexpected weight of my massive brother-in-law threw him off balance, and he fell face first into the snow. The wolves closed the distance in a heartbeat, and began the task of ripping his body to pieces. I almost jumped for joy, but everything went dark and silent.

And then I woke up. Here. Alone.


	2. Chapter 2

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**All characters and reference to past event belong to SM. I merely borrow them with gratitude.**

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**Chapter 2**

I rubbed my face with my hands trying to dispel the sinking feeling in my stomach. The sensation felt calming, so I rubbed each of my arms with its opposite.

The series of events played on repeat in my brain.

The Volturi leaders huddled. I held my shield over my family and the wolves. Jane attacked. The thought that she couldn't reach us made me smile again. The look of utter frustration on her face would remain with me for the rest of eternity.

A second series of events followed in my mind. Edward turned to face me and shouted a warning. I could see the danger in his eyes as they locked on my own. His path was as certain as mine. Any world that did not contain the two of us was no world in which the other wanted to live. Demetri breached my shield and ran toward me, but the wolves, with Emmet's help, reduced him to pieces.

Everything snapped to black.

I knew there were other pieces, fragments of memory, that existed in my brain. I could almost taste these missing memories. But they were just out of reach. I slowed the pictures in my head like watching a movie frame by frame. Edward shouted. Demetri breached the shield. Jacob attacked and was repelled. The wolves closed in. Emmett leaped. They destroyed him in a heartbeat.

A heartbeat.

My heartbeat.

I tucked one hand under the neck of my shirt and pressed down against my skin to be certain. It was unnecessary. The pieces all came together.

As I twisted my hair into a loose bun at the back of my head I realized why everything felt so familiar, yet different. My dim vision and lack of texture to the smells in the room. The smells became clearer the longer I sat in the tiny closed room: floor polish, window cleaner and spaghetti sauce. Grandma Swan's spaghetti sauce - my spaghetti sauce.

This was Charlie's house. And I was human.

I blinked again to focus my eyes, knowing it would do nothing. The change in my vision shouldn't be perceptible, it was all in my head. During my human life I prided myself on my ability to see long distances without squinting. I could never keep up with Edward and Jacob, but I did alright for a mere mortal. I closed my eyes. A headache started to form behind my eyes from squinting and rolling them. I was definitely human.

Standing up took a little effort. My muscles were raw, as though I had fought physically in the standoff. I stretched each one carefully, vaguely remembering the pain of pulling a muscle.

It was time to figure out what was going on, and to find Edward. With the exception of my secret trips to secure the passports and birth certificates now in Renesmee's backpack, this was the longest I'd been away from Edward and Renesmee. Few people, immortal or otherwise, want to challenge a newborn vampire who's love for her mate and child is stronger than her bloodlust, and equal to her newfound strength.

Remembering the look in Edward's eyes as he warned me of the pending attack made me shiver and return to my seat on the floor. My legs weren't steady enough to support my weight. I pulled my knees up to my chin and wrapped my arms around them find warmth against the memory.

Edward's eyes were filled with pain as though we'd already lost. It was as if the realization that I could be attacked was as painful to him as the attack would be to me. But I had out lived Demetri. I watched Emmet and the wolves destroyed him. I heard the terrible metallic screech as they tore him limb from limb. I smiled as he died. I liked it.

I shivered again at the dark thoughts. My pleasure to see one of their number cut down to preserve my own family and friends was one thing. My relishing his death was another. Edward would say it was just another part of my vampire nature, like my ability to hunt or keen sense of smell. His own violent feelings he'd call a monster.

He always gave me such credit. While I often worried his faith in my was misplaced I searched within myself to find the strength to figure out what was going on.

For the first time, I noticed what I was wearing - the blue shirt I'd worn the night Edward saved me in Port Angeles. I'd always liked this shirt, but hadn't seen it since my move to the cottage. Alice rarely let her family pick out their own clothes. I also wore the jeans I'd worn the night James lured me to the ballet studio with the promise of leaving my mother unharmed. They'd been nearly shredded that night from the glass on the floor, and given the extent of my injuries I never thought about them again. In the back of my mind I'd always assumed the hospital cut them from my legs and threw them away.

I looked down at my hands on my knees. My wedding ring, and Edward's mother's engagement ring were not on my fingers. I quickly searched the floor around me to see if they'd fallen off. My hands felt along the floor boards looking for gaps, in case they'd fallen through. I caught something out of the corner of my eye and paused. I stared at my outstretched arms as they shook slightly.

What I'd noticed was not something present, but something missing: my scar. In the place of the silvery crescent of James' bite mark on my arm was a patch of perfect skin. Pink, and plump and unmarred my twisting scar tissue. As thought it had never existed. As Though Edward had never sucked the venom from my blood. As though he'd never found the strength to love me.

This made no sense. Possible answers bounced off the light blue walls of the empty room as I said them aloud to calm myself.

"Time travel. I'm back in the time before Edward and I met. We'll do it all again because we are fated to be together forever."

But I'd never seen my room at Charlie's house empty like this. There'd been furniture when I arrived. A bed. The desk I remembered from my summers here, and the computer he'd purchase to soothe Renée.

I move to the window and looked out. My truck wasn't there, which wasn't strange as it was missing when I'd last visited on Christmas Day. Jacob, never one to let car parts go to waste, had towed it to La Push so his pack brothers could scavenge it. Charlie's cruiser was missing too. Now that I really looked, there were no cars, no traffic and no kids playing outside. No dogs barking or birds chirping. No sound. Aside from the sound of my own wet heartbeat - the world was silent.

Next idea. Decoding the meaning behind the silence could happen later.

"I've been knocked unconscious in the battle," I muttered. "This is what happens inside a vampire's head when she's knocked out."

That answer seemed even worse than my first. As far as I knew, vampires had no state of unconsciousness. I'd never seen it happen. Not when Kate shocked Garrett to the ground after one of our training sessions, nor when Jane used her crippling power on Edward at the Volturi liar. I was not unconscious.

"It was all a dream," I whispered. "Edward. Vampires. Jacob. Werewolves. The Volturi. My wedding," my voice hitched in my throat. "Remesmee."

"I made it up." The sob escaped my mouth and the tears flowed down my cheeks.

For the first time, I was glad for the ability to let out even a fraction of my sadness through salty tears. I'd never appreciated their restorative value until I became a vampire and unable to cry. I found the strength to stop crying, and try to stand again.

I pushed myself up from the floor, steadying my balance on the window frame. I steeled myself against my fears that I did indeed live in a world in which Edward, and our daughter, didn't exist.

"Edward and Renesmee are real," I said out loud to the walls.

Vampires are real. Werewolves are real. My family is real.

I am real.

And then it dawned on me.

I'm dead.


	3. Chapter 3

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**I do not own the characters or settings in this story. The belong to SM. I merely manipulate them with my imagination.**

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**Chapter 3**

_If I am dead, which isn't my favourite theory, does that make me a ghost?_ Despite my recent crash course in all things mystical, mythical and strange, I didn't know anything about ghosts.

"If I am one, why aren't I haunting something other than an empty house in an empty neighbourhood?"

_ Great Bella, _I thought, _now you're talking to yourself. Out loud. Wonderful._

Sitting on the floor wasn't helping me sort through my sudden appearance in my old bedroom, my recovered heartbeat or the fact that I was alone. Using the window ledge for support once more I pulled myself into a standing position and moved toward the door.

In my vampire body, the mere thought of leaving the room would have placed me at the door. Moving at human speed on unsteady legs felt strange.

Instead of reaching for the door knob, I attempted to walk through the door. I closed my eyes, and took the last, long step toward the wooden door. The cracking sound as my head connected with it wasn't that surprising, but the pain was. I checked my face for blood and laughed at my own stupidity. Just because I couldn't walk through a door, didn't mean I wasn't a ghost. Thoughts of garlic, coffins, silver bullets and full moons ran through my brain. Hollywood had really done a number on humans' perception of monsters.

The knob twisted in my hands easily, offering its familiar squeak, and opened into the upstairs hallway. I passed the bathroom and walked directly to Charlie's bedroom. It too was empty of furniture, but smelled like my father. The smell hit my heart like a battering ram.

Charlie.

He had been so frightened by my change at first. It was a lot to take in after weeks of phone calls to Esme for updates on my mysterious illness. I was glad when he eventually agreed to our need to know policy and could still be a part of my life and a grandfather to Renesmee. Though her daily growth spurts clearly made him uneasy, he loved her as much as her vampire family.

Standing in his room and smelling his aftershave reminded me of our first years together in Forks. They were awkward to be certain, but I never doubted his love for me. The last few times I saw Charlie he smelled a little too much like food and I'd put a wall up between us. I hadn't really noticed it until now. I couldn't hug him the same way, or sit in long comfortable silences with him like we used to. One deep breath in his presence was all it took to set my throat on fire.

"I miss you, Dad," I whispered to my absent father.

Leaving his room I moved to the stairs. I took them one at a time to avoid tripping, slipping, falling or any other way I could hurt my newly fragile body. The living room and kitchen were both as silent as the rooms upstairs. The furniture was missing, but more than that, it looked like it had never been lived in. Marks I knew should be on the walls didn't exist. A discoloured spot on the floor, that I caused by tripping over a can of paint while Charlie was brightening up the walls in the kitchen was indistinguishable from the rest of the tile.

We'd lived here. Charlie still lived her. I visited this house only days before. There was a Christmas tree with packing dust stuck in it's branches from Charlie's attempt to decorate it. I could still smell the cleaner and spaghetti sauce smells that were the familiar background scents I always associated with the house, but nothing else. No packing dust, none of Sue Clearwater's turkey. Nothing.

Charlie's empty house made me so sad that I hadn't even thought about Edward and Renesmee's absence after leaving my room. Unlike only hours before I could now only think about one topic at a time.

If I died, then what of my family? Could the Cullens, the Denali clan and our other friends hold back a Volturi assault without my shield? I blushed, having embarrassed myself for thinking I was the key to our entire defense. I felt so strong as the Guard approached. We were protected from their myriad of gifts, and armed with our own. I really believed, even if only for a moment, that we could win. If not, I had a back-up plan to save Renesmee.

My back-up plan had not involved me dying so early in the battle, without the opportunity to share my plan with anyone else. Renesmee was as aware as she could be that when I told her to run she was to climb on to Jacob's back and they would flee as fast as he could move. She was armed with the cash and papers Jacob would need to take them out of the Volturi's reach, and a message for Alice in hopes that part of my family could rebuild. Edward knew I had a secret, and I saw him eyeing the tiny backpack I'd given our daughter. I knew if the fight became too much Jacob would run with her regardless of my plan. Her life being so much more important to him than his own. Knowing my family as I did I could only hope they would guess at my intentions.

Edward's reaction was another factor to consider.

My death would enrage him. He would cease to be my gentle husband, my love, and release the monster he thought he was. Only the deaths of the vampire who killed me and anyone else within his reach would keep him going. But what would happen to my love afterward? Would he sacrifice himself in the battle to numb the pain of our separation? Would he and the surviving members of our family rebuild their peaceful lives and continue on forever? Surely if Renesmee survived Edward would dedicate his life to her well being. But when she was old enough to fend for herself, when she and Jacob built their own inevitable life together what would he do?

As much as it pained me to think about never seeing my mate again, I wanted him to stay with Renesmee. She would never be alone, no matter what happened, but to have lost one of her parents made the other's presence doubly important.

That thought left me only one option.

I wasn't certain how, but I had to find my way back to Edward. I knew what my life was like without him, and his without me. Though I was stronger now than I had ever been I had no interest in living without him. We completed each other, and without our love we were each only half of what we could be.

After one last look at my old home, I turned the knob on the front door and walked out into the sun.

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**I would also love it if someone wanted to beta. I'm an editor in real life, so my words are generally tight, but I find when I go back to the first 2 chapters I'm noticing obvious little mistakes. I'd love a second set of eyes. **


	4. Chapter 4

**Again, thanks for the reviews Pkpopi, SagaObsessed and Sweetie7smiled, the alerts and to the almost 200 of you reading. I'd love to know what more of you think of my story so far and where you think it's going. **

**I do not own the characters or settings in this story. The belong to SM. I'm merely thankful to manipulate them with my imagination.**

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**Chapter 4**

Alice once told me flying was faster than running, in hopes of calming my impatience. Running at vampire speed was definitely faster than walking at human speed. When I finally reached the end of Charlie's empty driveway at my snail's pace I pushed my body to move as fast as I could.

My own feet, my worst enemy as a human, tangled together and launched me on to the road. I immediately checked my clothes for tears and my hands for blood, but found none. My ability to bleed, a trait that had come so easily in my first life and disappeared in my second, hasn't returned with my heartbeat. The theory that I was a ghost started to carry a lot of weight in my mind.

A second attempt at running, while watching my feet carefully for dissent, lasted only slightly longer than my first. My lungs burned with the exertion and I rested with my back bent forward and my hands on my knees at the end of the road. _Walking it is_, I thought to myself.

It was hard to gauge how much time had passed since my awakening. I didn't have a watch, but the sun looked like it had moved some in the time I spent on the road. I didn't know what its placement meant for the time of day. Dawn, noon and twilight were pretty easy to identify, but the times in between were always a mystery to me.

Where I was headed was another mystery.

As I walked, my thoughts bounced between imagining my family in their fight against the Volturi, and worrying about Edward. I didn't give much attention to where I was going. There was nothing to see. If I didn't know Forks as well as I did, I'd guess that this was just an exceptionally quiet day in an exceptionally quiet town. Everywhere I went was just as I had observed at Charlie's house: no birds, no traffic, no people. No sign that there had ever been birds or traffic or people in the history of the town. It was as though someone had built the town, and then left. My footsteps on the gravel shoulder of the road and my breathing were the only noises other than the occasional breeze through the trees. For someone accustomed to hearing cars from miles away it was unnerving.

I closed my eyes as I walked on, picturing Edward's perfect face in my mind. His bronze hair, his golden eyes, and his crooked smile. I could almost hear his melodic voice. I imagined how he'd laugh at me walking around with my eyes closed in my current fragile state. A magnet for danger he'd called me early on. How true those words felt after tasting the strength and certainty of immortality.

My pink skin left me open to more physical pain than I'd felt as an immortal, but it also let me appreciate the sun in a way I'd forgotten. The sun in Forks didn't come close to the rays of Arizona, but the warm sunlight felt like it was soaking into my bones. It brought my spirits up a little. Given the strangeness of this day I'd take what I could get.

After what felt like a lot of walking I stopped at a house to rest. Needing rest felt weirder than feeling physical pain.

I walked up the front steps, and tried the door. It was unlocked, this was Forks after all, even if everything was empty and deserted.

As I walked through the house I was surprised to notice it lacked any of the familiar people smells of cooking, cleaning and life. The house was as empty and pristine as Charlie's, but didn't smell like anything. I wasn't prepared for it. For the most part, Charlie's house smelled as I'd always remembered it, as did outside. This house smelled of nothing. I laughed at myself for over analyzing. The old human Bella would never have thought to notice missing smells, or the placement of the sun in the sky. Edward's obsessive powers of observation must have rubbed off on me over the last couple of years.

I intended to lay on the floor for a few minutes to rest, but fell asleep. When I awoke for the second time I was as disoriented as the first time.

"Empty house, old clothes, no rings, no scar. No Edward_," _I said aloud. "At least I'm still talking to myself, so no change there."

My voice echoed in the silent house raising the small hairs on my arms. Its emptiness made me feel uneasy. Outside in the sunlight things would be better.

More aimless walking ensued. I wished desperately for my old pick-up truck or even the embarrassing Mercedes Guardian that had been my last human vehicle. Or better yet, my beautiful husband with his strong arms to carry me wherever I was going.

_Edward. _ I sighed.

Missing Edward felt like a hole in my heart, like a rock in my stomach. His absence surrounded me like a heavy cloak or darkness. I'd never felt more alone in my entire existence. Not even when I was certain James would kill me in the dance studio with no one to hear my screams. At least then I knew Edward was away from the violence that was about to happen, and that even if I died the world would continue to turn because he was still on it.

Not knowing the outcome of the Volturi battle was impossibly difficult. Had anyone been hurt? Did Renesmee and Jake escape? Did anyone survive? Were my family, the Cullens and the wolves, gone?

In the midst of too many emotions and questions I found a spot of clarity. I knew where I needed to go. The one place I would at least feel connected to Edward, even if I couldn't see him.

Our meadow.


	5. Chapter 5

**Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading an reviewing. Chapter 6 is in progress and you'll likely see it by Monday. Any input you have would be lovely, dear readers.**

**As always, all characters and settings belong to SM. I simply borrow them.**

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**Chapter 5**

Walking the path to our meadow was not as easy as I remembered.

Clinging tightly to Edward's stone back and flying through the trees was a bitter sweet memory as I pushed branches and overgrown plants out of my way. I could almost feel the way my soft limbs and torso molded to his body and the way his strong arms held my legs. I could smell his hair and skin in my mind. His own unique blend of delicious smells wafted through my memories. The hole in my heart expanded and threatened to swallow me hole. As difficult as it was to do, I pushed Edward from my mind, even if only temporarily, and moved forward deeper into the woods.

That I had ever managed to navigate these woods alone as a human mystified me. Each tree looked the same as the last, and the path that seemed so obvious to me at one time now seemed barely visible at all. My dim memories fueled me on. Even if I did get lost what was there to lose? I was alone in the world.

_A ghost, maybe. Dead certainly. _

To pass the time I thought about my other solo trip the meadow. It happened while Edward was gone, during my dark days. I sought the meadow for weeks, hoping it would remind me of the intense love that had once been mine. When I arrived the meadow was dead, like my spirit. The grass crunched underfoot, and only stalks remained of the beautiful wild flowers that carpeted the lush field.

I shuddered remembering Laurent's appearance at the opposite end of the field. He closed the distance in seconds, leaving me little time to think of escape or excuses. He'd planned to report back to Victoria, to tell her I was no longer protected by Edward and the Cullens. To tell her I was vulnerable, waiting to be killed. But my blood sang to him. Not as potently as it did Edward, but strong enough to warrant breaking his promise to the vampire who hated me more than any creature in existence. He knew he would not be able to resist tasting it and killing me.

Laurent promise to kill me swiftly, to save me from the drawn-out pain Victoria imagined in her fantasies. I braced for death. _Edward, I love you._

He was still. I risked witnessing my own end to open my eyes and see what causes his hesitation.. Wolves appeared at the edge of the meadow. Giant, terrifying, snarling wolves.

The wolves frightened me almost as much as Laurent did. I ran while he was distracted by their size and number. At the time I'd been unaware that one of the horse sized creatures bounding out of the woods was my best friend, Jacob. I ran and ran through the forest until I reached my truck. I drove and drove until I reached the safety of my house. Not that simple locks would protect me from vampires or giant wolves, but the feeling of home made me feel protected.

Once more I longed to feel protected. I yearned for the meadow to be green again. To see it bright with sunlight and painted with tiny purple and blue flowers. I would lay in the warm grass and feel it tickle my skin. I would breathe the fresh clean air and dream about Edward.

My feet stopped dead when I spotted it through a break in the trees.

The meadow, our meadow, was exactly as a remembered it. A green lake of grass and flowers. The silence of the rest of this strange version of Forks spilled over here too, but it was less noticeable. All but one of my prior trips had involved Edward. Unlike me, birds and other small living things were wary and silent in his presence. Even mountain lions knew they were no match for his lightening speed and his agile hands. They instinctually understood the implications of his strong jaw and the razor sharp teeth it held.

I was about to step forward into my oasis when saw a shape in the middle of the meadow that didn't belong. Self preservation took over and I slipped behind a tree. My clumsy feet cooperated for once and I managed not to attract the shape's attention. Quietly, but not as silently as I'd wished, I made my away through the trees, around to the left side of the shape. It didn't move, despite my inadvertent crunching of loose twigs as I walked.

My view from this vantage point was much better. What had once been an out of place shape became a person in my line of vision. A man. His skin was pale, but no more so than my own pink flesh. A human man then. I studied him closely. I wanted to gage the danger before I stepped out of the shadows.

_So, I haven't lost all of my vampire instincts, _I thought. _Or maybe I've just found the ones I should have had in my first round as a human. _

The man lay on his back with his eyes closed. He could have been asleep. His long body looked completely relaxed, and his slow and steady breathing only lent credence to the idea. His outstretched legs were crossed at the ankle with his arms were tucked beneath his head. A long sleeve, cream coloured, button-down shirt covered those arms and down his chest before tucking into a pair of dark grey, trousers. The pants' grey compared with the shirt's cream made his legs look long, betraying his height.

I really looked at his face for the first time since I'd checked to see if he noticed me. His hair was brown, but more than a mousy color. It was full of wayward locks that looked ready to escape the short style it was cut into. In spot where it caught the sun, his hair took on an almost coppery glow. He heavily lidded eyes were still closed and he breathed evenly through his nose. His pink lips were closed, with the edges turning up into a hint of a smile. As I noticed his lips and the nearly perfect square line of his jaw, his mouth opened with a contented laugh. When it closed again and settled into a decidedly crooked grin.

"Edward," I breathed. I stepped out of the darkness of the tree cover as I said it and into the dreamscape of the sun drenched meadow.

"Ah Bella," he said quietly.

I was in shock, but it was my turn to speak.

"What are you smiling about?" I asked slowly, still afraid to speak much louder than a whisper for fear my beautiful dream would end.

"I'm having the most wonderful dream about you," he said, as he sat up to face me and opened his impossibly green eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6 was replaced with chapter 16 earlier today (10/9/10). Sorry for the error, I was just doing some housekeeping and clearly made a mess. Here is chapter 6.**

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**Chapter 6**

**Edward's Point of View**

My imagination was even better than I'd believed.

I'd first pictured Bella in my mind the way I'd last seen her. Pale granite skin, indestructible muscles, full ruby lips and eyes that had mellowed to a burnt orange. It pained me to think that I'd never see them make their full progression from red to golden yellow. My family would have all looked some much alike then, a perfectly matched set of pairs.

The Bella of my imagination smiled. We were in the meadow we once shared as vampire and human. She stretched out beside me and placed her hand in mine. Finally, we were matched in strength and speed. Nearly matched. She was stronger and faster than I, but only until her system burned off the last of her human blood.

Never again would I worry about breaking her, hurting her when I only meant to love her. No more would I fear breaking her bones or piercing her skin with a careless movement. The temptation of the sweet blood flowing just below her skin would cause me no more pain.

I moaned in agony as the beautiful image faded from my mind.

Bella was dead. And for all I knew, so was I.

I restarted my imagination to stave off the pain and confusion of my current incarnation. My beautiful, immortal wife lay beside me once more. When she reached for my hand I laughed at how real the gesture felt in my broken mind.

"Edward." She said softly.

Her voice sounded slightly different. Less like the wind chime ring of my sisters' and more the way it used to sound. I shifted the image and conjured up a human Bella for my dream. Warm to my touch, her strong pulse in my ears, her sweet scent in my nose.

"Ah Bella,"

"What are you smiling about?" the dream girl whispered slowly.

Her lips moved, but voice sounded like it was coming from the woods to my left. I risked sitting up to look in the direction of the sound. My mind was playing tricks on me, but if it was as I'd assumed, and I'd completely broken with reality, I might as well enjoy the tricks.

"I'm having the most wonderful dream about you," I said as I sat up and turned to look into a pair of deep brown eyes.

She was not longer next to me, my beautiful dream. She stood at the edge of the woods, peering out fearfully from behind a tree. The specter moved from the tree line to stand by my side. She chewed her bottom lip as her hand slowly traced the side of my face. It trembled slightly as her thumb stroked my cheek.

My broken mind had rebuilt her in a way I'd never dreamed possible. She was perfect, so perfect. Every piece was exactly where it should be. Her touch felt so real. closed my eyes to savour the feeling lest it disappear with the breeze.

"This is the most perfect dream," I told the lovely image of my dead wife.

"Edward," she said quietly, "This isn't a dream. Or if it is I'm having the same one."

_That didn't make sense._ The voice inside my head cautioned me.

_Quick Edward, close your eyes before she disappears. Do it now!_

I squeezed my eyes closed as tightly as I could and threw my body back on the grass. I couldn't close my eyes tight enough to block out the pain so I ground my clenched fists against them.

"Please don't disappear, Bella. Please. The pain is too much to bear!"

"I'm here, Edward," She cooed. Her gentle fingers pulled my clenched fists away from my face and held my hands in hers. Her hands were not as warm as I'd expected, but not as cold as I'd expected either. This Bella felt strange.

"I'm actually here. With you. I think. If either of us is really here, wherever we are now."

"Are we dead?" I asked, not knowing if I could trust the answer.

"It's the best theory I've come up with yet," she said. "That or radioactive spiders."

Her smile was radiant and I started to believe. I wanted to believe so badly that the choice seemed beyond my control.

"You are really here, aren't you?"

She smiled again and ran a finger across my lips.

"I'm here, Edward." Her face was so relaxed. "And human."

"I missed your eyes," I said quietly, tracing her eyebrow carefully with my finger. "I didn't say anything after your change because I didn't want you to be self conscious, or to think I regretted your transformation. But your eyes are so warm, so brown."

"Yours aren't so bad either," she laughed. "I knew they'd been green, but I never expected them to be this green. Or to ever see them."

My hand flew to my face. Green eyes?

I knew when I woke up that my body felt strange, like it was made of glass rather than steel. When I first stood up my joints felt stiff, a feeling I hadn't known in more than a century. I felt like I was dipped in cement when I tried to run. Nothing moved the way it should, but I had attributed the difference to the strange dream state I seemed to be in. The idea of being, or at least appearing, human again hadn't crossed my mind.

"Human? You mean it's not just you?" I asked. "Do I still look like me?"

"Oh Edward, you're beautiful, just different. You're warm for one thing," she said cupping the side of my face in her tiny hand. "And your hair is more brown than copper. But your smile is the same. That's how I knew it was you, my love."

I couldn't help but smile when she said the word. She loved me. Even here in this strange limbo, she loved me.

I would have been content to stare at her face for eternity. To hold her hands and revel in the presence I thought I'd lost forever, but she interrupted my thoughts with a question.

"What happened...after..." She trailed off when she saw the flash of horror in my eyes.

I didn't know if I had the strength to even think the words, let alone say them. Bella's death had broken me completely.

I thought that the time I faced James had been agonizing. Fighting against hope to save her from certain death at his hand, and then my own, was terrible.

Then, I left her in hopes of giving her a normal human life. To hear her cries as I fled through the forest brought my long dead heart back to life just to cause me anguish. For days I wanted nothing more than to turn around and run back to Forks. I wanted to swim the ocean as penance, to walk the land to prove my devotion. But how could I asked her to take me back after the pain I'd caused, and the more deadly physical pain I could cause her? I was inconsolable.

When Rosalie told me she'd drowned, that my perfect love was dead without knowing how completely I loved her, I felt like my every nerve had been ripped from my body and exposed raw to the air.

Each was terrible, more pain than I thought one being could feel. None encompassed even a fraction of the agony I felt watching her die through my own eyes, and those of my daughter's, and then through his.

Bella's murderer played her death again and again in his mind for me to relive. The pain was staggering, even with her sitting here next to me. I couldn't breathe.

"You died," I whispered. My voice stopped in my throat. I couldn't speak. My eyes filled with tears that made short work of the trip down my face.

She reached out to wipe them away. My pain was reflected in her eyes as she mirrored my tears. The pull of her gaze was too strong for me to even interrupt it for a moment to wipe away her tears.

"And then you died?"

My lungs moved, I took a breath and felt the anger simmer within me.

"Reasonably soon after," I said. "I had something to take care of first."


	7. Chapter 7

**You're turning me into Pavlov's dog, lovely readers. Each added review, alert and favourite causes my email to ding, which forces me to haul myself to the computer. ****The very act of sitting here causes me to write more, which I suppose gets you want you want - more of Edward's big sad, green eyes.**

**Also, I was looking at the forums and didn't see many current threads. Can anyone recommend one?**

**The crux of this story is mine, but all characters and settings belong to SM.**

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**Chapter 7**

**Edward's Point of View**

"I was too far away from you," I began slowly.

The anger and pain mingled inside of me as I organized my thoughts enough to tell Bella how events unfolded after she fell.

"You saw Demetri. We all did. The purpose of his attack was to draw out attention so we wouldn't notice Felix," I spat the name from my mouth. I wished I had never known it.

"Felix came at you from behind, but I didn't see him until it he was on top of you. You didn't hear him because you were concentrating so fully on the shield. I was focusing on Aro's thoughts trying to see which way the Volturi leaders' reasoning was going so we could be ready."

"Felix announced his intentions to me as he pounced on your back. 'Edward? Are you listening? Because you are about to wish you weren't!' His voice was full of hate, but smug at the same time."

I could still hear his thoughts in my head, as though he were whispering it in my ear, as I repeated it to Bella.

"I turned in a fraction of a second, but it was too late. I was just in time to watch him sink his teeth into your neck. To watch him break you. As I moved to be at your side, two Guard members were in front of me. They too had broken off from the Volturi while we were distracted by Aro's pretense of a trial. They bound my arms as I watched the flint in Felix's lighter flash."

Tears claimed my face again, but this time sobs racked my entire body. Bella held my face to her chest and her the sound of her solid pounding heartbeat soothed my convulsions. It was confusing to have her there to comfort me when her death was the cause of my distress.

"I saw it through everyone's eyes. From every angle. Renesmee's, Carlisle's, Kate's. Even Felix's eyes. Especially his eyes. He show it to me over and over again. The way he stalked you. Your back to him, completely unaware." The sobbing claimed me once more as I relived Bella's death to the only person who hadn't witnessed it - Bella.

"Renesmee," she whispered, now sobbing with me.

The sorrow and aguish I felt took full control. I let the pain I'd kept at bay with my dreams of two Bellas encompass every cell of my body, each fiber of my being.

We held one another and cried passionately for a long time. As my sobs turned to dry coughs I took control of my voice once more.

"She will be fine," I assured Bella who now looked at me quizzically.

"The moment Rosalie saw what was happening to us she took action. She signaled Jacob, and it was as though he'd only been waiting for the right moment. Jacob barked to the pack and they rushed the Volturi leaders at the same moment he and Rosalie fled into the forest.

"As they ran she thought to me, 'Don't worry Edward. We hoped it wouldn't come to this, but we were prepared. I have a safe place for us. I'll find Alice and Jasper when it's safe. We'll protect Renesmee. We'll tell her every day how much you and Bella loved her. I love you brother, I always will.'"

Bella relaxed a little in my arms, but continued to cry quietly. Our daughter was with the two people most capable of loving her as much as we did. She would never want for anything. She would never be unattended. She would grow up surrounded by a loving devotion most children couldn't even imagine.

My strong beautiful wife wiped her face, and looked at me expectantly.

"I had a plan too. I know you knew I was hiding something from you in the time leading up to the battle."

"I did. The only reason I didn't push you was that I knew only your mind was safe from Aro. Will you tell me now?"

She almost smiled at my question. "Of course."

"I prepared a bag, the one on Renesmee's back. I took money from the stash in Alice's closet, and wrote a few letters to my family. My secret trips into the city were to secure papers for Jacob and Renesmee so they could get as far away from Forks and the Volturi as possible."

I couldn't help but smile. My silent-minded wife, a newborn vampire, had concocted a plan I hadn't even imagined.

"But why were you burning the book at the cottage the morning Alice disappeared. Did she have something to do with your plan?"

"Yes. Alice left me a note in the book. The note she left with Sam for Carlisle was written on the cover page. That's how I knew to look in it. Inside the book she wrote the address of a J. Jenks, but you may know him as Jason Scott, the lawyer. He arranged for passports, birth certificates and a driver's license for Jake."

Her last comment broke my depression completely and I let a laugh shake my body rather than tears. Jenks, and his father before him, had been our family's forger for years. Jasper worked the man into a state so frenzied that Alice saw visions of him having a heart attack on more than one occasion.

"My brilliant wife," I pulled her closer to me. I could not have her close enough now.

"What happened next?" She asked expectantly, throwing my mind back into the heat of the battle.

"After Rose and Jacob ran with Nessie all hell broke loose.

"Garrett and Kate grabbed the Guards holding me from behind. They were very strong and one of them nearly wrenched my head from my neck as Garrett attacked him. I moved toward Felix immediately, but I could hear Carlisle's thoughts as I went.

"He and Eleazar moved forward before the Volturi had even the time to break from their council. They took out Jane and Alec the moment the wolves were upon the Volturi leaders. They fell much easier than we'd expected. The 'witch twins' are not accustomed to covering their own backs. With them out of the picture it soon became a free for all.

"The loyal Volturi witnesses thundered toward the battle, while those less devoted fled. As did Amun and Kebi from our side. I can't say I was surprised."

Bella shook her head in agreement, not waiting to interrupt.

"The Volturi Guard were shocked at the fight we'd offered them. They while our two sides were nothing close to balanced it was the most fight they had ever seen out of an accused coven.

"I watched through Carlisle's eyes as they streamed toward him and Eleazar, but I was too distracted with Felix to watch it play out.

"He continued to repeat your death for me as I moved on him. I started reciting the chromatic scales in my own mind to block him out, but it barely muted his thoughts. Only revenge kept me moving. I stalked him like a wild animal, screaming and growling for the fight. Kill was my only though and fury my only emotion."

Bella's hands were to her face now. Cringing at the image my words conjured in her head. I wanted to stop to comfort her, but I she wanted the entire story. I could tell by the look in her eyes she knew I now offered her the only revenge she would ever get.

"He didn't anticipate the extra strength my fury would provide. While he sat back proud of his kill I pounced on him. I felt my growls shake his body beneath me. I ripped and tore and shredded each piece of him as I encountered it. When Felix raised his hands to engage me, but I tore them from his arms. I then wrenched his arms from their sockets and threw them behind me.

"He expected caution from a Cullen. 'A gutless Cullen, barely a vampire at all,' that's how he saw me in his head. His opinions had changed somewhat around the time I destroyed his legs and left him to writhe on the ground unable to escape me. I took my own lighter from my pocket and watched him burn and scream, through my own eyes and through his."

I felt guilty to expose Bella to the part of me that dripped with such loathing and hate despite the fact that Felix had destroyed my main reason for existence. I'd always been careful to hide the monster rooted deep inside me, but here I was celebrating a death by my own hands in front of her.

I looked into her eyes expecting to see fear. There was none.

Her face was flooded with a mix of anger and satisfaction. She'd wanted to know I'd killed the one who murdered her, and I now could see she'd wanted to hear the details.

"Go on," she said. A tremor in her voice betrayed the calm she fought to keep on her face.

"After Felix was gone I looked around to see where I was needed. The Volturi witnesses disappeared in droves, and our family had dispensed with a much larger number of the Guard than I'd expected. Zafirina blinded most of them, and Benjamin opened a giant hole in the earth for them to fall into. The wolf pack herded them into it like bison over a cliff. The Denali sisters and Garret had a pretty close hand on their fight, and I thought they could handle themselves.

"I couldn't hear Carlisle, Emmet or Eleazar's thoughts. Esme thoughts were suddenly very loud and she was letting loose a long string of very un-Esme like words so I sought her out in the field to see what I could do."

"Watching her in hand-to-hand combat felt wrong and I flew to her side to help her. While I engaged the two Volturi soldiers she had been fighting, a third came out of nowhere pinned Esme to the ground. He was going for the kill when I dropped my fight and lunged for him. I managed rolled him off of Esme to free her, but he landed on top of me, pinning me instead. He was very strong and I couldn't move under his weight.

"I heard a ripping sound as his teeth met my skin, and everything went black."


	8. Chapter 8

**Thanks for reading, reviewing, setting alerts and waiting a few days for this chapter. I appreciate it immensely. **

** I'm at a bit of an impasse as to where the story goes next. The final chapter is written and waiting for me to arrive at it. Any thoughts, suggestions, ideas you might have would be appreciated. **

**All characters, settings and back stories belong to SM. **

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**Chapter 8**

**Edward's point of view**

We sat in silence for a long time, letting my story of the battle ring in our ears. Each of us lost in our own thoughts of how our family had fared. Realistically we had no idea who, if anyone had survived.

Bella spoke first, breaking the silence.

"Edward, I want to go home."

I was home. True we were in a strange place where we appeared to be human and even the things that looked familiar felt strange. Where ever she was, even Hell, that would be home to me. But how could a creature as good as my Bella be damned? If we were together then the Gods had judged me worthy or my penance.

Bella looked at me imploring, and spoke again.

"Take me home Edward."

I pushed myself into a standing position from the grass and extended my hand to her. She took it and I pulled her into a standing position next to me. It wasn't close enough. I pulled her tight to my chest and rested my face on her hair. She turned her face to smile at me and said the word once more, "Home."

We took my path from the field to my family's home. I did my best to hold branches and ferns out of her way, to lift her over fallen trees and help her cross the tiny rivers.

The sun was setting as we emerged into the yard. At least the sun set here. That was something that we could rely on to remain stable.

Bella noticed it before I did.

"No cars," she whispered. The world was so quiet I initially thought she meant the sound of traffic from the highway. I took a moment to realize she meant in the driveway.

True the world was silent, but the miss-matched collection of vehicles that filled our driveway in the days leading up to the battle was gone. As though they'd never been. An oil spot I remembered in front of the garage was gone. It had been there since our first week in this house. Emmett's jeep died as he was pulling out of the garage. She didn't want to risk starting it to get it back inside, nor were the high heels she wore were suitable for pushing a jeep up an incline, so she fixed it in the driveway.

"Everything is the same but different," Bella said quietly. "When I woke up I was in my room, but there was no furniture. My vision seemed hazy, but I think that my mind was expecting my eyes to see the way they had when I was a vampire. What was it like for you?"

"Much the same, my love, but you figured out the puzzle much faster than I."

I told Bella how I'd awakened on the carpet in my bedroom snarling and thrashing, looking for my opponent. When he wasn't on top of me, and I was no longer in the field I grew disoriented. It was the first time I'd been unaware of my surroundings in more than 100 years. I took some time to study the walls around me, and realized I was in my bedroom. Like Bella's, my room was empty.

I sat there imagining the confusion on my face and laughed aloud to think of how it must have resembled Bella's human face when she woke suddenly from a dream.

The moment I thought her name the battle, and her death, rushed back to me in a wave. Like a swimmer at high tide I was battered against the rocks of my memories. I slid back to the floor from the sitting position I'd assumed. I became as still as the stone I was and tried to push the memories away.

"When I finally stood my joints felt sore. I'd read about over exertion of the muscles when I studied medicine. The pain was nothing close to the searing pressure I felt when Jane attacked me with her gift, but it was in it's own way worse because it was so alien."

Bella interrupted, "I felt very similarly, but I understood the pain. I guess it was because it hadn't been so long since I'd been human."

"What did you do next?" She asked.

"I walked downstairs, amazed at the holes in my vision. After a few tours of the downstairs rooms I could see that the house looked like it had never been occupied. Despite Esme's ardor for interior decorating there had been 27 vampires and a small pack of giant wolves spending their days and nights in and around the house. Emmett had destroyed several houses on his own trying to cure his boredom.

"I couldn't figure out what was happening to me, or the world. Your death was like a thick blanket thrown over my brain, so I just walked. I walked, talking to you in my head, imagining your responses, until suddenly I was in our meadow. I laid down in the grass to talk to your ghosts in my head, and then you appeared at the edge of the trees."

Bella's face twisted in an expression of confusion. Her silence bothered me.

"What are you thinking love?" I asked. I thought we were beyond my needing to ask now that she could force her shield from her mind.

"I was trying to let you into my mind, to see if the things we experienced were the same, but I can't feel my shield to move it."

"Maybe it's gone. Perhaps in our current state I'm no longer a mind reader either. We'll never know as long as it's just us here."

She chuckled at my comments and we walked along in near silence. Our breathing and the crunching of gravel under our shoes were the only sounds. The sun had mostly disappeared, and I was surprised by how little I could see in the dying light of the day. I was certainly more human than I could ever remember being.

As we neared the cottage I feared it wouldn't be there. To have walked so far for Bella to be home, only to find our home was gone would be a blow she did not need. I could feel beads of sweat form on my brow from the nervous energy built up inside me.

Bella sped up as we rounded the last bend. She tripped on the loose stone of the path, but her determination to reach the cottage before dark was clear. I closed my eyes and let her lead me by the hand as I listened for her reaction in the silence around us.

"Edward. There's smoke coming from the chimney!"

She dropped my hand and ran ahead. I unclenched my eyes as she slipped through the front door of the cottage.


	9. Chapter 9

**Thanks for reading! Real life has gotten in the way the last little while, hence the delay between updates. Reviews make me write faster. **

**As always, SM owns Twilight, Edward, Bella, their little stone cottage and the whole town of Forks. All I did was kill them off and steal all of the furniture in town. **

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**Chapter 9**

**Edward's Point of View**

I tensed as Bella entered the cottage. If the rest of Forks was empty, yet there was a fire in our hearth then that could mean only one thing: Someone else was here.

What would have been an involuntary hiss when I was a vampire came out of my mouth sounding decidedly pathetic. I wiped the saliva from my face with my sleeve, remarking silently that it was much less viscous than venom.

"What was that?" Bella shouted from inside.

"Nothing." I replied curtly. Being human was going to take some getting used.

"No really, did you try to hiss?" She was giggling now.

"No. It was nothing."

Bella's laughter filled the cottage as I walked through the door. She was doubled over on the small couch that filled most of our sitting room, with tears streaming don her face.

"You're face!" Her laughter exploded again.

My hands brushed my face to discover the source of her mirth. It felt a warmer than it had earlier, but I wasn't accustomed to having blood in my veins and couldn't understand what she found so funny.

"You're all red!" Her laugher threatened to cut off her air supply. "You're blushing, Edward!"

Her laughter didn't abate, but I couldn't stay irritated. Being human with my Bella did have its upsides, but it was so much harder when I realized that my irritation was due to the fact that she was much better at it than I. As she calmed down I took her face in my hands and looked into her eyes.

"You'll have to be patient," I said. "This is so strange for me, being human. I have instincts I've carried with me for one hundred years that suddenly don't apply. I feel like I can't see or hear well enough to protect you. I can't run fast enough to keep you out of harm's way. I can't even imagine who would win in a fight between Mike Newton and I at this point."

Bella only smiled and took my hands from her face to hold in her own. "There's no one here but you and I Edward. It's just us. Us and the furniture."

I looked around the cottage to see that it was true. But why was there furniture here and no where else?

Bella noticed the look of confusion in my eyes as I worried about the furniture.

"Stop thinking about it. Realistically, it isn't any stranger than you blushing. In fact I think that's even weirder than us owning the only furniture in town," a smile spread across her face as she started to laugh once more.

To watch her face break into such easy laugher was better than seeing the rarest piece of art. Our lives had been so tense the last few weeks, with Alice and Jasper's disappearance, the impending visit from the Volturi and a daughter who out grew her clothes on a daily basis.

I scooped Bella up into my arms, noticing for the first time the actual weight of her body. She was only the weight of an average sized teenage girl, but I now had the strength of an average sized seventeen year old boy.

"Is the bed still here?" I asked as I walked across the tiny cottage at human speed, hoping she would understand my real question.

"It better be," she said wrapping her arms around my neck.

**Bella's Point of View**

Edward put me down the bed gently, and then took a deep breath.

"Am I that heavy?" I asked keeping my voice light.

"No, I'm nervous."

Edward looked down that the floor, at his feet, at anything but me. I couldn't fathom what he would be nervous about, and I didn't want to push him. Being human again must be so confusing for him. My human memories were fresh, only months old. His were more than a hundred years old, and those that remained were very foggy. I put my hand over his now beating heart and marveled at the feeling of it while I waited for him to speak.

He looked at me for the first time since we'd entered our bedroom. Our little hide-away from the rest of the world where we could make love, sit in the garden in companionable silence or watch our daughter sleep through the night while a low fire burned in the hearth.

"You're just so natural being human. You are exactly as you were before the change. I remember you," he paused. "But you didn't know me when I was human. I look different. I feel different. My body doesn't work the way it did yesterday. I feel weak and unable to care for you the way you're accustomed to. The way I am accustomed to caring for you."

He sighed and sat down next to me on the bed. His eyes were back on his feet, and for the first time since I'd known him he looked tired.

"Talk to me, Edward. I need to know what you're feeling."

"I worried that I am too different. That I'm not the man you loved."

I consciously smiled as I cupped his face in my hands and brought it closer to my own.

"Of course I love you. You are Edward Cullen. My husband. The man I pledged to love you as long as we both shall live. You're here. I'm here. So this counts as living in my books."

Slowly and carefully, I closed the distance between our already close faces. As our lips met I felt a spark of electricity pass from him to me. He kissed me eagerly, but I felt like he was still holding something back from me. I pushed myself back further on the bed and laid down. My hand curled around his neck bringing him with me.

As Edward and I moved together on the bed something felt very different. It wasn't just that he was warm and soft. It was something more.

From the way he held his body I realized he had placed all of his weight on his arms. I could feel his warm legs touching mine, and his stomach grazing mine, but there was no pressure behind it.

His face looked strained, and a little pale. He was incredibly tense at a time I felt anything but. As tense as he had been our first time. When I was human and he was not.

"Are you being careful not to break me?" I asked smiling.

"A little bit," He said smiling sheepishly. "Old habits are hard to break. You are soft and warm so I feel the need for caution."

"I can understand that. But you are soft and warm too." I ran my hand down his no longer wash board abs. He was still my Edward, he'd just lost his immortal gym membership when he died.

"Did you want to debate this, or- " I didn't let him finish.

I pulled his face back toward mine and wasted no time moving my hands from his neck to the buttons on his shirt. A debate was not what I'd been looking for. My plans involved a lot less talking.

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**Bella wants to know what Edward is thinking, and I want to know what you're thinking. Your reviews today are my keystrokes tomorrow. **


	10. Chapter 10

**Well my dear readers, there have been nearly one thousand of you reading my story of the last few weeks. That's really exciting for my first ff. **

**Special thanks to SagaObsessed, Pkpopi and Myth'lovin' for coming back again and again and always having something to say. Thanks also to everyone who comments, favourited and set an alert. You all make me smile. Send your friends this way and let's make it an even thousand. **

**To show my appreciation I've decided to let you all have a say in where we're going next. I'll see you at the bottom and explain there. **

**As always, SM owns Twilight and all of the characters, their past actions and settings I've mentioned. I own the tale you read below.**

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**Chapter 10**

**Bella's Point of View**

I rolled over and rested my face on Edward's chest as he slept. Our sheets smelled the way we had when we were vampires, like strawberries and freesia and summer. We no longer smelled like that, but the scents from our former lives lingered here, like the did Charlie's in house. Whether they really existed, or were merely imbedded in my memories was hard to tell.

Edward said he didn't smell anything at the Cullen house, and he couldn't really pick up on the smells I'd pointed out him in the cottage. He assumed that it was because he was too confused by his new human sized sense of smell to notice anything other than the fact that his brain suddenly has a lot less to process. It sounded as good, or better, than anything I'd come up with myself.

I thought back to the discussion we had as we lay in bed watching the darkness take over the day. We talked about our theories behind why we were the proud owners of the only furniture in Forks, but hadn't come up with any answers. It seemed too perfect that we were also the only people in Forks, this version of it at lease, and therefore the only people to need any furniture.

He hadn't ruled out the idea that we were in some sort of afterlife. But he shook his head and refused to believe it when I suggested we might be in Heaven. First he said being in Heaven should instill a sense of peace, and we were confused, and a bit lustful, but not completely peaceful. Second, he still didn't believe he had a soul. If he had no soul he couldn't be in Heaven but if we were together then it couldn't be Hell. Edward refused to believe I could end up in Hell because I'd never done anything wrong. I came up with a list of my bad deeds, but he only laughed and called them "human foibles" not misdeeds. So we were no where.

We decided to let the mystery stand, and just enjoy each other, regardless of where we were. While we lay in cocooned in comfortable silence and tangled in the sheets and one another, Edward fell asleep.

His skin was so warm and the vibrations from his heartbeat felt foreign to me. I could count each one, and watch his body move with the slow, single minded purpose of keeping him alive, if that's what we were. His heart beat, his blood pumped, his lungs expanded to take in air, and then contracted to let it out in gentle waves. I watched the stillness of his face as it moved ever so slightly with his breathing.

When we'd first been together I marveled at how different we were at every opportunity. I was clumsy and breakable. He was graceful and permanent. I was constantly embarrassed by how easily my body gave away my deepest thoughts and emotions. He was hard to read and hid things from me easily. All I had to do was pick up an envelope the wrong way and slice the skin and the differences between us were as clear as night and day.

I'd hated my humanity then and yearned for immortality.

Becoming like Edward had been a dream. A confusing dream when I'd first awakened immortal, but it soon became normal life. Even the craving for blood had become as natural as eating a bowl of cereal after the first few days. When I ran next to Edward or hunted with Jacob it was easy to believe I was a vampire.

Edward could hold me the way he wanted to. I could touch him the way I wanted to without him removing my hands from his body and looking at me with that mix of pain and desire. As a newborn I was stronger than Edward, stronger than even Emmett. Edward couldn't pry my hands away from him anymore. Now that we were equals, and he didn't need to worry about hurting me, he no longer wanted to.

Suddenly I had a huge family. The Cullens felt like my family before my change, even before the wedding when I joined their family as Edward's wife. Becoming immortal was like joining their family again, but this time in a tangible way. It wasn't a ring that made me one of them, but the venom that coursed through our bodies. Carlisle's venom had passed to Edward and Esme during their changes, marking them as family. That same venom, now Edward's, had passed to me marking me as his. We were as biologically bonded as Charlie, Renee and I, though the physical dynamics in a vampire coven differed quite a bit from a those of a human family.

It was the life I'd been born to live.

I was fast and strong. I could use my instincts to hunt, and my common sense to stop when lives were in danger. Charlie was still my dad, and Jake was still my best friend. I was a good daughter-in-law to Carlisle and Esme, a loyal sister to my new siblings, a loving wife to Edward and a devoted mother to Renesmee.

Now here I was, a human woman with my human husband alone in the world. What most women in my position would give for the opportunity? Not me. I missed my family, human and vampire alike, and my daughter most of all.

Knowing Renesmee was safe with Rose and Jacob helped, but I still felt like a piece of my body was gone. Something more than my body, like a piece of my very being was missing. She would be cared for. They would raise her with love and happiness, and the protection that only a vampire aunt and werewolf imprint could offer. She would never want for anything and she would never be alone. That was something. I hoped they would find Alice and Jasper thanks to the note I'd placed in Renesmee's bag directing them to Rio De Janeiro. Perhaps they could all start again and rebuild out family.

Moved my head from Edward's chest to my own pillow. The fabric was as cool on my face as his skin once was. I watched him sleep, carefully pushing a wayward lock of hair back from his peaceful face. I was beginning to see why Edward had enjoyed watching me sleep so much.

I could see the tiny movements of his eyes as they darted under their heavy lids that meant he was dreaming. I was more than a little disappointed that he didn't talk in his sleep the way I did. The idea of blackmailing him with the unconscious thoughts he mumbled in his dreams appealed to me as a way to win back my own after he had listened to so many of my dreams. I'd also hoped he was dreaming of me.

Edward been almost jealous of my ability to sleep when I was human. I hadn't understood his motivation at the time, but after watching Renesmee's dreams I could understand. There was something so intimate about watching someone when they are at their most vulnerable, as Edward was now.

In and out - I counted his breaths, and his heart beats one by one until I too fell asleep.

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**Ah, but what is Edward dreaming about? The best suggestion left in the comments will become Edward's dream and the next chapter. If you see a suggestion you like, mention it again. I can get behind the idea of a popular vote. Reviews make me smile, and smiling lets me type faster. See you in Chapter 11. **


	11. Chapter 11

**Narry a comment on Edward's dream. That's okay, I'll blame it on the issues FFdotnet was having and not you dear readers. **

**This is a short one, but it does push the story forward. I'll have a real chapter for you by the weekend. Thanks for sticking around, and for making it to 1,000 visitors. **

**The story below borrows characters and settings from SM, but Edward's dreams are all mine.**

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**Chapter 11**

**Edward's Dream**

I was in a grocery store.

I could count on one hand the number of times I'd even set foot in one, all of them in the time I'd known Bella. When Carlisle and I lived alone he'd always picked up our ration of props on his way home from the hospital. Just a few things, mostly for the effect of Dr. Cullen being seen in public buying groceries. We rarely stayed in any of those small towns long enough to bother putting on a show the way we had in Forks.

Conversely, Esme loves the grocery store. At any given time we could have fed half of Forks with the contents of our freezer alone. It wasn't about the shopping as it was for Alice, but the people. Esme had a big heart, and having to stay so distant from humans made her lonely. She had Carlisle, the love of her immorality, and me, a companion and son, but she yearned just to spend time surrounded by people.

Once she was able, she went out in public as often as she could. Grocery stores, walks through town in the early evening, libraries. I'd always believed her interest in interior decorating and design stemmed from the idea that her new interests offered her a new reason to be around people and to interact with them. I'd never felt the pull to interact with humans until Bella came into my life.

So why was I in a grocery store? I had no memory of arriving here or what I was supposed to buy. The store was empty of people, but filled to the rafters with food. I pushed my empty cart down the aisle and the rattle of the wheels echoed in the silence of the store.

I hadn't eaten in over one hundred years, and as a result I hadn't really paid attention to food. Most of the boxes I saw on the shelf looked terrifying. Boxes of garish orange crackers, and what looked like individual rolls of coloured plastic. Surely no one ate such disgusting things. I understood the purpose of eating on a physical level, to sustain the body, and the enjoyment human received from eating. I'd seen that enjoyment myself on Bella's face when she ate her favourite foods, or when I cooked for her. But I couldn't understand how anyone could eat _this_.

My cart remained empty as I reached the last aisle. Something smelled delicious. It was unlike anything I'd ever smelled before. The the scent drew me toward a small a dining room table in the middle of the freezer aisle.

I abandoned the cart and walked quickly toward the table. One chair sat at the head of the table. It faced a place mat featuring a small bowl of soup, a cloth napkin and a silver soup spoon. Steam rose from the bowl, hastening the smell to my nose. It was vegetable soup. Not a canned soup like those I'd seen in one of the aisles of the store, but real homemade soup. I wasn't certain how I knew that, as I couldn't remember ever eating soup, or anything else in my human life. The soup was filled with chunks of carrots, potatoes, celery and turnip. It smelled like heaven.

I pulled out the chair and sat in front of the delicious scent. Without thinking I picked up the spoon, dipped it into the soup and raised a spoonful to my mouth. It tasted as good as it smelled. Warm and soft, like a fall day and a wool sweater. I closed my eyes to savour the taste of the broth on my tongue.

I closed my eyes to savour the taste, and when I reopened them I was in bed with Bella in our cottage. She was laying beside me propped up on one elbow looking down into my face. From her expression I could tell she was holding back laughter. I rubbed my eyes and blinked a few times.

"That was strange."

"What were you dreaming about?"

"Dreaming?" That would explain why the store was empty, and the randomly placed dinning room table.

"Yes. You weren't talking until just before you woke up. It was a kind of moan. 'Mmmmmm.' That was it. 'Mmmm-" She couldn't hold back her laughter anymore and flopped down beside me on the bed.

"I was dreaming about soup."

"Sorry. Soup?"

"Homemade vegetable soup. At a grocery store." That was enough to set Bella laughing again and she fell right out of the bed.

"Are you alright?" I leaned over the bed to look at her lying on the floor tangled in the sheet.

"Yes, but confused. Why would you dream about soup of all things?"

I reached down to help her up, and as she grasped my hand I suddenly understood my dream.

"I think I'm hungry."

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**I know what Edward is hungry for, but what about you? If someone else were to turn up in Forks who would it be? Review get Edward's supper on the table. **


	12. Chapter 12

**This chapter came out quickly, as did it's younger sibling. If I can avoid working on the weekend you'll see another chapter on Sunday. We're nearing the end friends. **

**Thank you to everyone who reads, reviews, follows and messages me. You're all wonderful. **

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**Chapter 12**

**Bella's Point of View**

I'd been hungry since I woke up, but watching Edward sleep was so perfect that I wanted to stay in bed as long as I could. Getting up might wake him and break the dream I was clearly having. None of this could be real.

When he woke he told me about his own dream, and I couldn't contain how hilarious I found it. The idea of Edward eating soup was too funny to contain, especially paired the the "Mmmm," noises he made in his sleep. I laughed myself right off the bed on to the floor, taking a tangled mess of blankets and sheets with me.

Sitting on the hard wood floor I heard my stomach rumble almost as loudly as my laughter.

"I think I'm hungry," he said slowly as he helped me back on to the bed.

We dressed in the clothes we'd scattered on the floor the night before and walked out into the main room of the cottage to investigate.

"If we have furniture, we might also have food," I said hopefully, opening the wooden drawers Esme had built into the stone wall. Everything in the cottage reminded me of Esme. She worked so hard to build a place I would not only feel comfortable in, but that would love. And I did, as a vampire and now as a human.

Edward opened a cupboard door half heartedly, gave it a cursory glance and closed it again with a resigned thud.

"I don't think we'll find anything to eat in the cottage," he said quietly. I gave him a puzzled glance.

"The furniture is here, because it was here before. Everything here, the sheets on our bed, the clothes in our closet, the furniture, was here before. We didn't need to eat before, so there was no food."

He had a very good point, but it only brought up more questions.

"Right. But there is no furniture in any of the other places we've been so I just thought that the cottage might be special."

"I know love, and it is special. We have furniture, and a fire that never seems to go out," he gestured at the still burning fireplace.

We hadn't put any wood on it before we'd fallen asleep, but it burned on exactly as it had been when we arrived. The greenish blue glow of the driftwood flames licked the wood, but didn't seem to char it the way they should have.

"That is so weird."

He laughed, "Oh Bella. I have a heart beat for the first time in a century, you're human again and we seem to be the only people in the world. You would still find it possible to think an eternal fire is weird." A smile lit up his face and I resolved not to let the lack of food dampen our good mood.

"Why don't we take a walk and see what we can find?" I stretched out my arm, offering him my hand.

"I'd love to walk with you," he said, taking my small hand in his.

The garden Esme planted behind our small home was exactly as it had been. Tiny bunches of flowers threw splashes of colour reminiscent of a Jackson Pollock painting. I imagined her planning it out on her drawing board, humming and smiling to herself as she sketched.

"I wish I taken more time to tell Esme how much I love the cottage," I said sadly.

"She knew Bella. Your face is so expressive there was no way to hide one ounce of how much you appreciated her gift."

The thought made me smile. As beautiful as our garden and our stone home were, they weren't going to fix the sounds coming from my stomach. Edward's stomach answered mine as we continued on the path back to the Cullen house.

"Are you terribly uncomfortable?" I asked.

"No. It's definitely an odd feeling, but nothing like being thirsty. I didn't remember how it felt to be hungry for anything other than blood until my stomach rumbled." He rubbed his hand across his mid-section absentmindedly.

"I'm used to hearing your stomach, but it sounds completely different coming from inside my own body."

I enjoyed seeing Edward marvel at the things I'd taken for granted my whole life. It was as though he was a child with the intellect to actually understand the world around him as he experienced it for the first time.

Edward and I passed the time as we walked talking about my favourite foods. I could almost see his mouth watering as he took in my every word. The sun was high in the sky as we reached the big white house, which threw a large puddle of shadow on the ground directly in front of the stairs. Edward shuddered as we stepped into the shade and started up the front steps.

"It's cold out of the sun," I said smiling and squeezing his hand in mine.

"No. Well, yes, but that's not it. The house feels different. Something has changed."

Edward pushed his body in front of mine, and started backing up. My feet stuttered on the steps as I tried to take them backwards. I stumbled into the sun, barely catching my balance before I fell onto the lawn.

I looked up at the house, but it appeared completely normal to me. Edward was on guard, keeping his body between mine and the house. I couldn't see his face, but I knew him well enough to imagine the fierce expression he'd be wearing. His body was tense, muscles coiled to spring at anything that dared venture out.

"Go back to the cottage, Bella." His voice was cold and as tense as his body. Ragged breaths moved from his lungs, faster than they would have if he was just tasting the air. Edward was afraid of whatever was in the house.

I backed farther into the sun. I wouldn't leave him here to face whatever was in the house alone, but I didn't want to rush head on to meet it either.

A sound echoed out of an open upstairs window and both Edward and I raised our faces into the sun to see what made the noise. I shielded my eyes against the glare, but couldn't see through the sun's reflection on the window pane.

Edward was backing up again, and almost on top of me when we heard the lock on the front door grind open. He turned quickly and scooped me into his arms, preparing to flee the moment he sized up whatever would be coming after us.

The door opened slowly and a figure stood in the doorway, still invisible from our position in the mid-day sun.

Edward took two quick steps backward, and steadied himself to prepare for more should the figure venture outside. I could hear his heart pounding in my ear as I turned my face against his chest. I hadn't seen death coming the last time, and I didn't particularly want to watch this time either.

As the figure stepped out into the light Edward turned his back on it to break into a flat out run. I clenched his shirt in my hands and willed myself not to scream as his heart rate reached what had to be a dangerous pitch.

_Don't scream, don't scream, don't scream, _my inner monologue chanted in my head. It was hard to be brave now that I understood how truly breakable the human body was.

We had almost reached the safety of the tree line when the figure spoke from the darkness of the doorway.

"Edward? Is that you?"

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**And still tno food. I'm proud of broody ole Edward for not playing the "I haven't eaten in 100 years card." Still taking recommendations on lunch. If you hadn't eaten in a century what would you crave?**


	13. Chapter 13

**My little story had tons of new readers yesterday from the looks of things. Welcome all. And thank you to those who have been here all along. Here's a nice long chapter for you and the revelation of the figure in the door. **

**Narcissa Weasly won a place in Edward's heart (and stomach) with her lunch suggestion. **

**And as always, SM own the Twilight universe - I just like to shape it like Play Doh.**

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**Chapter 13**

**Bella's Point of View**

"Edward, please." said the figure again.

It was a man's voice. Instead of the anger I'd braced myself for all I could hear in his voice was concern.

Edward stopped running, but didn't turn toward the house. I unclenched my fists from his shirt and opened my eyes to look up at his face. His eyes were closed, and his lips were pressed together tightly.

"Please." said the voice. "Turn around, son."

Carlisle.

The strength seemed to wane from Edward's arms and he slowly lowered my feet to the ground. I turned to face the house, and for the first time, saw Carlisle standing on the porch with his hand resting on the railing.

His hair was blond, but not the shining spun gold it had been. His face was still welcoming, if not the chiseled movie star Adonis he'd been as a vampire. I was so used to his skin being a pearlescent white that he now appeared to be almost tanned. His whole body echoed the concern in his voice for Edward.

I reached for Edward's hands and slowly lead him back to the house. Edward looked straight at Carlisle, but showed no emotion on his face. It was as though he was sleep walking toward him.

Carlisle walked down the stairs slowly, but waited at the bottom for us to approach him. His deep blue eyes were almost an impossible colour, and tight with worry for his son. When we arrived he nodded to me slowly and stepped toward Edward to embrace him. The moment Carlisle's arms wrapped around Edward's shoulders he came to life and gripped Carlisle tightly in return. Edward shook in Carlisle's arms, and it brought tears to my eyes to see how overwhelmed he was to see his father again.

"It's so good to see you Edward," he said calmly. "I wish the circumstances were better."

When Edward relinquished his grip I took my turn hugging Carlisle. It felt strange to feel his arms and chest mold around my body, rather than the perfect piece of marble he'd once been.

"You're dead." Edward said quietly as Carlisle released me.

"As are we all, I'm afraid," Carlisle said sadly.

"Who else?" Edward whispered. Though he'd asked the question I knew he didn't really want to hear the answer. "Esme? Renesmee?"

I could understand the sadness in his voice. It reflected what I felt myself.

We would see our dead family members again, Carlisle's appearance was proof of that. But being dead also meant they were destroyed. Our family was fractured more so than I'd believed when I thought it was just Edward and I. Without Carlisle, our leader and our soul, how could anyone who survived the fight go on? Would they be able to rebuild without him? Without us?

"Come into the house," Carlisle said as he put a hand on each of our shoulders. "We have a lot to-"

He was interrupted by a hulking man who barreled out of the door, down the stairs and swung me into the air.

"Little sister!" he bellowed in my ear.

"Emmett! You're here too!" I could barely breath as he swung me around like a child.

"Edward!" He yelled dropping me back on my feet and pounding Edward's back with his giant hand. Edward almost collapsed under the force of Emmett's greeting and Carlisle put out his hand to steady him.

"You probably remember, Edward, how strong Emmett was as a human. I can't help but wonder how long it would have taken for him to figure out he has a human's strength and weaknesses if I hadn't found him shortly after he woke up."

"I'm sure I would have figured it out before my first hunt," he said laughing and threw a meaty arm around Edward.

Edward still looked shaken by his father's death, though he tried to smile at Emmett.

"As I was saying, why don't we go inside and have a bite to eat. There's plenty of food in the fridge, and now that Bella and Edward are here it should be easier to figure out what goes together as they both know how to cook," Carlisle said as he lead the way into the house.

The boys went into the kitchen to make lunch and Carlisle steered me into the dinning room.

"Edward seems shaken," his whispered in my ear. "Has he been like this since you found him?" His voice became even quieter, so much so that I could barely hear him.

"You can whisper a little louder, I doubt he can hear us from the kitchen." A clatter of dishes punctuated my point. Edward was too absorbed in finding me food to bother listening to our nearly silent communication.

"Yes, you're right," he said a little bit louder. "It's hard to get used to this," he said gesturing to his body.

"For me too. Thought I guess it's a little easier for me as I was human a few months ago, and you haven't been since... the 17th century... Wow."

"It is somewhat strange to think about."

"To answer your question, no he hasn't been like this the whole time. He's having trouble adjusting too, but this is new. I think it's because he never thought of you as able to die, until he saw you here."

"Was he this upset when he found you?"

"No, not exactly. But it's different with you. You created him, you raised him as your son, as a vampire, for decades. My most defining characteristic used to be how easily I could die," I smiled at my own gallows humour.

Pounding footsteps echoed in the hall as Emmett walked in with a tray of sandwiches, apples and oranges. Edward stood behind him still looking tense.

"Why don't we all sit down and have lunch," Carlisle said as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

We each took a seat at the massive dinning room table. I occurred to me that it would be the first time any of us had ever eaten at this table. Eating alone at the giant table seemed silly to me, so I generally took my meals at the Cullen's in the kitchen. It would also the first time three of us had eaten in a very long time.

I took the stack of plates from Edward and handed them around the table. Emmett started by grabbing 3 sandwiches in one thick hand and an orange in the other.

I placed a sandwich on my plate, and then Edward's as Carlisle served himself.

"This is amazing!" Emmett declared one sandwich in. "What is it?"

"Ham," I answered with my mouth full. Something I'd forgotten about eating. Hunting wasn't really a social occasion like a family meal, so we rarely even communicated while feeding our thirst.

"I like ham then." Emmett said as he raised the orange in triumph, stuck it in his mouth and tried to bite through the peel.

"You are supposed to peel it," Edward said cooly, trying not to laugh and actually smiling for the first time since we'd arrived at the house.

"How'mIsupposetokow?" Emmett mumbled around the orange his teeth were now embedded in.

"Haven't you ever watched the kids at school eat?" I questioned.

"I guess not," he said staring into his hand at the chunk of orange. He put the rest of the fruit aside. Edward picked it up with his thin fingers and peeled it in seconds. Carlisle and Emmett looked at him blankly.

"Bella loves oranges," he said passing the now peeled sections back to Emmett. "Sometimes I peel them for her."

Emmett looked at my face, and back to Edward's before laugher broke from his chest.

Ever the scientist, Carlisle broke our strange discussion about eating and insisted we tell him of our experiences waking up and since. I went first because, as the first to die I was probably the first to arrive.

I told my tale of waking up at Charlie's, walking to the meadow, finding Edward and then setting out for the cottage. When he asked how we'd spent our time since meeting up, I was vague. When pushed, I finally said we spent a lot of time sleeping, which wasn't a complete lie because we did spend a lot of time in bed. Edward covered his grin by taking another bite of his apple, but Emmett could barely hold in his laughter. Edward quickly started to tell his story, in hopes of drowning out the snickering Emmett couldn't rid himself of.

I watched Emmett as Edward spoke. As a human, he was the most like his vampire self of the four of us. He was still giant, still rowdy and still strong as an ox. His sense of humour hadn't changed one bit. He actually looked comfortable in his own skin. The only story I knew of Emmett's human life was the story of his death, but I'd always imagined he was a very happy person.

Edward stopped speaking when his story caught up to mine. Carlisle pushed his chair out from the table and began to pace its length.

"This is very interesting. Bella woke up at Charlie's, Edward awoke here at home. As did Emmett and I. Where is the difference?"

"The furniture thing is still really weird too. I thought you said none of this was here when you woke up Edward?" I asked.

"It wasn't. The first furniture I saw was in our cottage."

"I wonder if the other houses are furnished yet?"

"Wait. Please explain what you just said," Carlisle said. He halted his pacing and turning to look at me.

"Well," I said feeling nervous for the first time. I hadn't omitted the missing furniture from my story on purpose, it just didn't enter my mind as I told the story. "When I woke up there was no furniture at Charlie's, or in any of the other houses I stopped in to check for people on my way to the meadow."

"And when I woke up here the house was empty." said Edward. "Not just empty, but pristine. No dents in the walls, no chips in the floor. Marks I knew should be there were missing. Like that one," He walked over to the doorframe and pointed to a small divot in the wood.

I remembered the mark. Emmett and I had been playing around on our way out the dinning room after a family meeting. He'd elbowed me and I elbowed him back. When I tried to hit him once more to prove I was stronger he jumped out of my way. My elbow left a perfect circle where it connected with the wooden doorframe.

"How is this possible, Carlisle?" Edward asked as returned to the table to put his arm around me.

"I'm really not certain," he began. "I can't figure out where our experiences diverge other than the lack of furniture. I was laying on the bed in the room Esme and I share. Emmett, you woke up after Edward, why don't you tell us your experience next?"

Emmett rubbed his hands together, excited to be the center of attention - even if it was to talk about his own death.

"Alright boys and girls," he said like a carnival barker. "It all starts with me, Demetri and a pile of wolves."

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**I couldn't resist getting the Doctor's opinon of alterna-Forks, and who didn't want to see Emmett eat an orange? Reviews are my ham sandwiches. **


	14. Chapter 14

**Welcome to the longest chapter yet. This one just seemed to flow, and I couldn't bear to cut it up. *Pun (that will become obvious later) not intended***

**I know I say thanks for the reviews, alerts, messages and all every chapter, but I mean it every time I write it. Thank you! There would be no point to writing this if you guys didn't make me feel so good about it. **

**Everything but the strange plot below belongs to SM. Her characters are simply fodder for my cannons.**

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**Chapter 14**

**Emmett's Point of View**

"Jacob was the first to see Demetri after he got under Bella's shield, and he went after him. I think you all saw that part."

They nodded quickly, as if to rush me along, but that wasn't going to happen. I loved telling stories, especially when they have me starring as the hero.

"Demetri tossed Jacob like a pillow. What an idiot. Who goes after the Volturi's 'best fighter' alone?" I added air quotes for effect. Bella growled a little under her breath. It sounded more like an angry kitten than the vicious mother lion she'd been.

"I saw Seth, Leah and Jacob closing in on him, once Jacob had a second to get himself together. There was no way I was going to let Demetri get away, so as they circled him, I dove over the wolves and tackled him to the ground.

"Unfortunately, the wolves jumped at the exact same time and just started shredding everything in sight with their teeth." I rubbed my left shoulder. "Seth, maybe it was Leah, I don't know - a wolf that wasn't Jacob sunk it's teeth into my shoulder. I guess he thought I was Demetri."

Bella winced. She hadn't even seen the damage a wolf could do to a vampire first hand like the rest of us had in the fight against Victoria's newborns. Those dogs were vicious.

"So, it took a second to get whoever it was to unlock their jaw, and in that time the other two wolves had torn off Demetri's arms. I am so glad their aim was better than the one who attacked me.

"I ripped off his head, and as the only one with thumbs and a lighter, I got to start the bonfire," I raised my hand to Edward for a high-five which he gave me begrudgingly. He either didn't much care, or he was a pretty weak human. I figured it was the second one, as my story was epic.

"Then I did a bit of a touchdown dance around the Demetri fire," I started to get up to demonstrate, but Carlisle shot me one of his looks.

"Sorry. Jake liked it."

"But how did you die, Emmett?"

Bella's question kind of hung in the air as I tried to remember. What came to me next made my skin feel cold, and the ham sandwiches weren't sitting in my stomach very well.

"Edward screamed." I could hear it in my head. I suddenly understood what the phrase 'my blood ran cold' actually meant.

The silence continued so I kept talking in hopes drowning out the sounds in my head.

"Felix hurt you," I said carefully while looking at Bella. I remembered every sound and movement leading to her death, but I didn't think it would help anyone, least of all Edward, for me to relive it.

"Edward was trying to get there, but two of the Volturi Guard were in front of him. I tried to get to them before they actually grabbed him but I was too late. He fought with them but they weren't letting go.

"I was almost there, but something leveled me. It felt like every bone had been ripped from my body and had been replaced with burning hot metal in one second."

"Jane," Edward said darkly.

"I guess," I shrugged. "I was hard to see what was going on around me, that's how much it hurt. After what felt like hours, but was probably less than a minute, everything went black. Then I was here."

"Was there furniture?" Bella asked. She seemed obsessed with the furniture thing, as did Carlisle.

"Yeah. I was laying on my and Rose's bed. Dressed like a total loser in these weird wool pants that itched like crazy."

"You were dressed similarly to the way you were dressed the day you died, Emmett," Carlisle said. "As was I, but I changed clothes before leaving my room. I didn't really understand where I was, but on the off chance that I ran into someone else I didn't want to be seen as strange or out of place."

"Out of place in the afterlife," Bella said to no one. "Sounds like a song title."

"You're also dressed in the style of the period in which you died Edward," Carlisle said.

"Well that answers that one. I thought Edward just had no taste," I joked.

"Me too. These are the same jeans I wore to the ballet studio too, but I know the doctors cut them off me at the hospital. And my scar is gone," Bella said holding her wrist up from the table to show us. "I expected waking up human would make it come back, but it didn't."

"Interesting," Carlisle said, resuming his pacing. "So we all awoke in nearly the same fashion as we died, but without the injuries we sustained as humans. As we all healed when we became vampires I can only assume that the healing carried over."

_Thank god_, I thought. I could barely remember my guts hanging out of my body as Rose brought me to Carlisle after the bear attack that would have killed me if the venom hadn't. I really didn't want to remember it.

"So that brings us back to the furniture," Bella said.

"Yes," said Carlisle. "That's still a mystery."

"I think I understand it," Edward said, "But I need Emmett to answer one question first, to test my theory."

Me? What did I know.

"What was your first thought when you awoke in your room?" He asked.

I didn't know, and I couldn't really understand the point of his question. The three of them were staring at me, waiting for an answer I didn't have. Edward read the confusion on my face.

"Don't think about it, Emmett," he said quietly. "Just answer."

I closed my eyes and pretended it was all happening again. The battle, the pain, opening my eyes.

"Home," I said. "I thought, 'I'm home.'"

"Home," Edward repeated. He looked at Bella next.

"What did you say to me when you said you wanted to leave the meadow?"

"I said that I wanted to go home," she said, her eyes lighting up.

"Edward, let me see if I'm following your thinking correctly," Carlisle began. "You believe that the reason there was furniture in your cottage is because Bella recognized it as her home. The reason this house was furnished when I awoke was because Emmett first saw this as his home?"

Carlisle was clearly excited to have a theory he could work with.

"Exactly," Edward said. He looked more like the confident, and smug, Edward we all knew and loved. Even if he wasn't as tough as he was before.

"Great, so now we understand the stupid furniture thing," I still didn't see its importance. I continued, "But where are we? I mean, we're dead right. Actually dead this time."

"I'm afraid so," Carlisle looked pained. "And I can only suppose that if we are the only members of our family here, everyone else survived."

The idea that Rosalie was alive made my heart beat faster. My angel lived to fight another day. Good girl. But the thought that I would never see her again was a lot to take in.

"I think I need some air," I told my family.

"By all means," Carlisle said. "Would you like one of us to go outside with you?"

"No thanks. I think I just need sometime to take all of this in."

I went out onto the step to think about all of the images rolling around in my head.

As I sat down, a weakness went through me, and I started to shake. Telling my story had seemed great, until I really thought about the ending. My ending. I wasn't the hero in my story. I was the idiot who got himself killed by jumping into a fight without watching what was going on around me. I was dead. For real this time.

Dying the first time hadn't seemed like a big deal. I'd always been good at taking things in stride and making the best out of them. After the bear attacked me, and I was laying on the ground waiting to die, it just seemed inevitable. There was nothing I could do so I might as well go with the flow.

When I heard something attack the bear I was even a little bit pumped that at least the animal that killed me was getting his. When Rose picked me up off the ground I thought she was an angel coming to take me to God. It wasn't so bad. I might have been dying, but I had the prettiest girl in the world with me.

Carlisle scared the crap out of me. I thought he was God, and since I was in even more pain once he'd shown up, he must have been angry. I hadn't been the best guy in my 20 years, so Hell seemed a likely option. But my angel never left me.

When the pain started to go away, she was still there. When I could feel my hands again, instead of just the burning in them, she was holding them in hers. While Carlisle tried to explain that I wasn't human anymore, she sat by my side adding her own little explanations. Being a vampire was fine by me, but was she going to stay with me forever?

Hearing Rosalie's laugh when I asked her if she'd stay with me and teach me how to be a vampire was like music. The most beautiful choir of voices all singing for me. She said she'd stay with me forever, longer even, if I wanted her to.

I got the girl, a family and I was the strongest guy I knew. Not a bad deal all tolled. Dying was the best thing that had ever happened to me.

Now it was the worst.

Rose was my rock. My wife. The only person who really got me. I knew everyone else loved me, but they thought of me as big crazy Emmett. I wasn't talented like Edward and Alice, or smart like Jasper and Carlisle. But to Rose I was everything.

I was the only person she'd pour her heart out to when she was feeling bad, and the only one who could make her smile when she was angry. Rose took a lot of flack for wanting to kill Bella when Edward first found her. It wasn't because she was mean, she just wanted to protect me. She would do anything for me, as I would for her.

That was over now. I didn't even know where she was, or if she even knew I was dead.

If she and Jacob felt Renesmee was threatened they'd planned to take off with her. Rosalie booked travel for the three of them to get to Rio and then Esme's Island. It seemed like a good plan, because other than Carlisle, Esme, Edward and Bella, none of us had ever been there before. The chances of Aro learning its location, or even of its existence through our thoughts seemed unlikely. I was going to tell the rest of the family about it once we'd dealt with the Volturi and we could all meet up there. The perfect plan.

Except that now the only person aside from Rose and Jacob who knew the plan was dead and they were headed to an island no one would think to look for them on.

My hands moved on their own to cover my face, and it was wet. I didn't remember crying when I was human, it wasn't something guys did in my day. But I was really crying now, for all of us.

It felt like a hole was ripped through my chest. Worse than the bear attack or Jane, because that had only been physical pain. This felt like my existence was being ripped apart, one chunk at a time.

I wrapped my arms around my legs and let go. Everything I'd ever felt, good, bad, love, anger flowed from my eyes. I wept like a girl for Rose, now all alone in the world, and I wept for me. This couldn't be Heaven because I didn't have my angel.

The door opened and closed behind me, but I didn't look up. It didn't matter anymore. Nothing did.

Bella squeezed her way into the space next to me on the step. She didn't talk, she just rubbed my back and sat there for a while listening to me cry. When I stopped shaking she started to speak.

"Edward left me once. I'm sure you remember it. You all left."

I remembered, but I didn't answer. We all still felt bad about what happened, even after everything had turned out right in the end.

She continued, "It was like everything that had been good about my life, everything that was right, was taken away from me. I felt like I couldn't go on living my life because he'd taken with him everything that mattered.

"There was a gaping hole in my chest. I knew my heart was still inside of me because it hurt. With every beat more pain flowed into my veins. It was like drowning from the inside out. If I really had to pick I'd say it hurt more than being changed. For months I couldn't talk, or eat, or sleep without waking up screaming. Everyone was afraid. Some of me, some for me.

"Edward left me because he thought he was doing me a favour by giving me a normal human life. He chose to leave me and if I'm honest I don't think I've ever stopped being hurt. I understand his motives, and I know how much it hurt him in turn. I know he loves me and always will, but that time will always be there inside me, below the surface.

"Rosalie didn't leave you. You died. That's terrible, and I know you're hurting a lot right now. That's how it's supposed to be when you lose the person you love. But you need to remember that she loved you more than anything. You had more than 70 years together. That's more than most people get.

"Rose is alive, and she's hurting now too, because you're gone. But you have both been loved. Not only been loved, but felt the most powerful kind of love imaginable. That's something to hold on to. No matter how much it hurts right now."

Bella's words made sense, and for the first time I really understood what it must have been like for her while we were gone. Sure Edward and Alice had seen it in their heads, but I felt it. Her words didn't lessen the pain, but she gave me other ways to think about it.

"Thank you," I said without looking at her.

"Anytime big brother." I could hear the smile in her voice.

I finally felt I could lift my head without losing it again. I noticed the sun was going down. It looked like it was balancing on the tops of the trees and everything was bathed in an orange glow. It was beautiful. _Great, I'm turning into a big wimp_, I thought.

"Time to go back in?" she asked.

"Might as well," I answered. "Were there any sandwiches left when you came outside?"

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**Oh Emmett. Sigh. Reviews are like Emmett's sunset, beautiful and appreciated. **


	15. Chapter 15

**Hi folks, thanks for coming back yet again. After some crazy long writing sessions this weekend I know now how it ends. As will you (likely) by the end of this week. **

**All of the characters and settings below belong to SM, I just like to make them angsty and philosophical. **

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**Chapter 15**

**Edward's Point of View**

When the last of the sun set behind the tree tops, Bella and I said our goodnights to Carlisle and Emmett and returned to our cottage.

It hurt me to leave after finding them again so unexpectedly, but we needed time to ourselves to absorb all that we'd learned. After the conversation I had with Carlisle while Bella was outside with Emmett I wanted nothing more than to hold her tight and never let go. It hardly seemed right to do that in front of Carlisle and Emmett when they were so clearly missing their mates.

"How is Emmett doing with all of this?" I asked her as she crawled into bed and stuck her cold feet under mine.

"He's hurting." She told me about their conversation on the step. I could sympathize with her because my conversation with Carlisle had been similar.

"Some Heaven," I sneered when Bella was out of ear shot, checking on Emmett outside.

"This isn't Heaven, Edward," Carlisle said flatly. The cheerful demeanor he'd worn all day slipped and I could see he was troubled. I had never seen him this despondent in all of our time together.

"I think you have always been correct about our souls," he spoke more to his folded hands resting on the table than to me. I didn't want to be right if it hurt my father like this.

"If this were Heaven we'd all feel at peace. The sadness we feel about losing our family and our futures would be absorbed by our closeness to God."

Carlisle's faith in God had often confused me. He was a man of science and a vampire. But his faith drove him to practice medicine because he thought he could redeem what he was if he was good and righteous.

"I don't feel at peace, Edward. I feel like the people and beliefs I held dear all of these years have been torn from me. I am the soulless creature you always believed yourself to be. Esme was my guiding light, my happiness, and now she is gone. Do you remember our lives before her?"

I nodded.

Carlisle and I had lived simply in our years before he found Esme. He wasn't exactly unhappy, but he wasn't really living either. The two of us just existed. He taught and I learned. He worked at the hospital and I went to school. We hunted and survived.

We only became a true family when Esme joined us three years later. We loved and rejoiced in each other's company. The two of them seemed made for each other like puzzle pieces.

I felt that connection still, even when I left to go out on my own for a few years. I was afraid to rejoin them because I feared they would judge me harshly for my choice to take human lives. Carlisle especially. The path I'd taken was the exactly opposite of his entire life's work; He saved lives and I destroyed them. I became my father's shadow.

When I did return they welcomed me with open arms. Esme looked ready to burst when I walked through the door and Carlisle simply hugged me saying, "It's so good to have you back, son." Neither of them ever mentioned my red eyes or the figurative blood on my hands.

"She was one of the reasons I believed we were good," he continued. "The reason I believed I was good. If I was no more than an animated corpse I couldn't have felt such deep love for her. If I was not worthy, one so pure as she would not love me so.

"To have known such love and now be without her means this is not Heaven. It's more like purgatory. Perhaps that is the best we vampires can hope for. To never know the fires of Hell, but remain bared from the light and peace of Heaven."

I had no response. Carlisle had clearly decided where we were, and I doubted I could sway him from his conviction anymore than I could have swayed him from his previous belief that we had souls.

"I'm sorry, son. Your experience here must be very different from mine," he looked ashamed of his outburst of pain. "You and Bella have each other, and I'm glad for that."

His sincerity made me feel less guilty for the many times throughout the afternoon I'd touched Bella and kissed her in front of Carlisle and Emmett. I was glad to have Bella. More than glad - I was astounded. But I still carried a hole in my own heart.

"Renesmee." I knew Carlisle would understand with only one word.

"Yes. I wanted to let you tell me on your own, rather than remind you of her unnecessarily. We can be hopeful that she survived.

I told Carlisle of Rose and Jacob's escape with her when it was clear the battle was no in our favour. He didn't look surprised.

"Dear Rose," he said fondly and I raised an eyebrow in response. While I appreciated that Rosalie left us to protect Renesmee, she was also protecting herself.

"She is such a conflicted woman. You have never seen Rosalie clearly, and I can only blame my original intent for her. I should have known merely creating another vampire into our family would not mean that you would love her, or she you. It was too much pressure to place on both of you to feel something that wasn't there.

"But, to see her heart you simply had to watch the way she looked at that little girl, or Emmett. She has so much love to give, but she hides it away under her fear and anger. I've always believed it to be a symptom of her death at the hands of a man she thought she loved."

Carlisle had clearly spent a lot more time thinking about my sister's heart than I ever had. I'd always wanted to know the love she and Emmett, Carlisle and Esme, and Alice and Jasper had for their mates. Once I found Bella I understood because I felt it myself. But I had spent many years seething with jealous of my family members. Especially Rose who seemed content to throw my solitary state in my face constantly.

I stood from the table and walked to Carlisle's chair. For the first time since our reunion, I really saw him.

He looked exhausted, and his hands shook ever so slightly where he clenched them. His back was bent, and his arms supported his weight against the table. He looked like a man on the edge of a precipice. He looked the way I had seen myself through Jacob's eyes when Bella was pregnant. The burning man, he'd called me in his thoughts. Carlisle was now the burning man, but I felt powerless to help him. No words could relieve his pain.

"I am sorry you are without her," I said resting my hands on his shoulders.

"Thank you," he put one of his hands on top of mine. "When you are here I am never alone. You were my first son, Edward. You will always be special to me for that. You and I are a lot alike. I've always believed that is part of what binds us together."

"I've always tried to find the good inside myself that you believe is there. It is only with your help that I can actually see it now," I told him.

Carlisle smiled, but he still looked tired.

When Bella and Emmett returned to the dinning room she and I took our leave. Carlisle and Emmett would take care of one another for the rest of the evening. We were a still a family, if a much smaller one.

Bella was silent throughout my story. I touched her face and smiled to remind her that it was alright for us to be happy to have each other here. It was one of the few things that made being without our daughter bearable.

"Do you think we're in purgatory?" she asked quietly.

"I've been thinking about that a lot this evening," I began. "I've never really believed that our kind would go to Heaven. You and Carlisle, perhaps, because you had never murdered anyone. But myself, never. There is too much blood on my hands."

"Not these hand, thought," Bella said intwining her warm fingers with mine. "Maybe this is a chance to start fresh, without the blood lust or the mind reading. To just be a normal man, living a normal life."

I laughed without thinking and abruptly stopped for fear of hurting her feelings.

"I wasn't laughing at you, just the idea that a world containing only my father, brother and wife as its entire population could be normal."

"Maybe not, but maybe this is as close as we can get," her voice became quiet and I could tell she was starting to fall asleep. I watched her breath deeply until her eyes began to twitch, and I left her to her dreams.

I laid awake for most of the night thinking about her words. Whether she was right or Carlisle was right, I would do my best with what I had.

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**What do you think; who's right on this one? Was Carlisle a little too cold or does his reaction make sense? Let me know. Reviews are my Heaven. **


	16. Chapter 16

**Welcome back friends. Enjoy this, the last chapter. See you at the bottom for a somewhat important author's note. **

**All characters, settings, past actions and even the Cullen's dinning room table belong to SM. Alterna-Forks is all mine.**

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**Chapter 16**

**Bella's Point of View**

As the weeks turned into months our little family developed a routine.

Carlisle kept track of the days we'd been here, and made notes on our weights, heights, health and even the most insignificant events like rain and the new foods he, Emmett and Edward enjoyed. It was his way of moving on, studying the world around him to learn what he could of it.

The fridge never emptied and it contents neither diminished nor rotted. I silently thanked Esme each time I opened it for always keeping it well stocked just for me. She was now feeding her husband and sons, and we could always feel her presence even though she wasn't with us.

Emmett and Edward studied our strange world through experiments. They took random items from the house and left them in the various empty buildings in Forks. They started small with a house key we would never need again as there was no one to lock our doors against and slowly worked their way up to entire pieces of furniture. Each day they returned to their "labs" as they called them, to check that the items were still there. They were.

After a few weeks of experimenting with objects, they graduated to food. After one month, the loaf of bread Edward left on our biology desk at the high school was still edible. Food was followed by gasoline, as they drove each car, one by one, to empty and parked it in the garage. The next morning the tanks were full again. For nearly a week, Emmett tried to sit up in Rosalie's BMW all night to discover at exactly which moment the tank refueled. He fell asleep every time.

I turned my attention to writing. I wrote my account of the battle against the Volturi and my experiences after my death. When I finished I interviewed Edward about his one hundred years, and wrote his story. He remembered little of his life before he met Carlisle, so I moved on to asking Carlisle for what details he knew of Edward's human life.

My father in-law enjoyed the passion I had for my new work so he volunteered to tell me his story and Esme's as well.

"You were a great balm to her heart, you know," he told me when he explained that Esme's human death was a result of the deep depression he faced when her baby died only a few days after his birth.

"Esme thought of you like a daughter from the beginning. She saw your kind spirit and admired the way you thought of us only as Edward's family, not as monsters." He always smiled when he talked about Esme.

"Why do you think we have so many cookbooks?" He asked. "Esme bought out nearly the entire cooking section of the bookstore in Port Angeles when you started spending a lot of time with us. She was eager to take care of you."

His words brought tears to my eyes.

"Carlisle, I could never see you as monsters. Any of you. You all welcomed me into your home and your family. Well, most of you at first, but all of you in the end." I smiled shyly thinking of how strained my early relationship with Rosalie had been.

"You are very special to us Bella. You always were and always will be," he said.

His three hundred plus years and his version of Esme's story took even longer to write than Edward's, so my time was well occupied. Emmett and Edward fought playfully for each finished page, and I hoped my project had given us all some degree of happiness in our lives.

Carlisle started a writing project of his own, writing daily letters to Esme. I didn't ask to read them, but I was certain he updated her on our progress with the Cullen family history and our day to day lives.

Sometimes when I went into his office for our story sessions he was crying over the pages of his latest letter, but they usually seemed to ease his pain. Over time a genuine smile returned to his face. He seemed to grow stronger with each letter. We were hopeful that his heart would heal.

After what we later learned was almost six months, Emmett used the dates in Carlisle's daily chronicle to devise a 2007 calendar. In the stress of preparing for the battle with the Volturi none of us had purchased one.

We picked birthdays for Emmett and Carlisle as they didn't remember their actually birth dates after they became vampires, and marked mine and Edward's on the calendar. We all seemed to be aging again, at a normal human speed according to Carlisle's health checks, and it seemed only natural to celebrate.

In June, shortly after Edward's birthday, Emmett stood up after dinner to make an announcement.

"I want to start by saying how glad I am we are all together. When I first realized I'd never see Rose again I wasn't sure how I could keep going. Each of you has played a part in helping me, and thought I never say it I've always felt grateful,"

Emmett looked a little embarrassed at his quick speech. He was never big on expressing his feelings. I hadn't heard his voice sound so serious since our talk on the step the first day we came to the house.

"I've been thinking about this for a while, and I'd like to go off and explore for a little while. I just need to see what's out there," his hands were balled at his sides. "But, I don't want you to feel like I'm deserting you."

"Son," Carlisle said standing and walking over to Emmett. "The members of this family have always reserved the right to take leave when they need to, and they have always been welcomed with open arms when they returned. This will always be your home."

"Thanks, Dad." He grabbed Carlisle into one of his bear hugs and looked over his shoulder to Edward and I. "What do you guys think?"

"We'll miss you," I said. "But I think I can understand why you need to go."

"Just come back eventually," Edward added. "I want to know what you find, and I'm sure you'll want to know how the old loaf of bread holds up."

"For sure!" Emmett release Carlisle, high-fived Edward and then pulled me into a tight hug of my own. "Thanks guys."

We celebrated Emmett's journey with a cake I'd baked from one of Esme's cookbooks, and Carlisle peppered Emmett with lists of things to check on and items to pack for his trip. Emmett promised to keep his own daily log and compare it to Carlisle's when he returned.

As Edward and I walked back to the cottage that night I asked him if he had ever thought about leaving during the last 6 months.

"Not really," he started "I'm curious about what Emmett will find, but I have what I need here. You and Carlisle keep me grounded. I miss the rest of our family every day, but we are building again together."

I felt the exact same way.

As we felt asleep in our little stone cottage I couldn't help but think if this wasn't Heaven, it was close enough for now.

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**That my dears is the last you will see of **_**these**_** Cullens for a while. The epilogue will answer some of your other questions about everyone else. Hopefully I'll get it to you by the weekend.**

**Now, important business to tend to. I've been pondering writing a longish one shot companion to this story to explain what happens to Edward, Bella, Carlisle and Emmett after this story ends. Two question for you to answer: 1) Would you read it? 2) What questions would you want answered?**

**You reviews are my little stone cottage. **


	17. Epilogue

**This is it, dear readers. **

**Thank you for sticking with me through these 25,000 and some words. I appreciate every alert, favourite, review and PM. If you've been reading along without making a peep I appreciate that too (that being said, I'd still love to hear from you).**

**I know some of you would rather the story continue on after Chapter 16, but this feels organic to me. Remember what I told you way back in Chapter 1? Fiction is a fickle mistresses and she does what she likes. I know there are things you don't understand about alterna-Forks. Honestly, there are things I don't understand about alterna-Forks yet. But that's what fiction is supposed to do. If Stephenie Meyer filled every gap in the Twilight books we wouldn't be here reading and writing fics. **

**I will write a companion story, but it won't be immediate. Please add me to an author alert if you'd like to be notified when I post it. I'm still open to your thoughts on the next story, please leave them as a review or send me a message.**

**And one last time: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters and settings below. I just make them sad.**

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**Epilogue**

**Esme's Point of View - A number of years after the battle**

The moon shone down on me and I thought about how many thousands of nights I'd looked up at it in my many years. I piloted the boat toward my island my thoughts about the moon turned into thoughts about my life.

I'd known great pain as a human. Such pain that I wanted to end my own life to escape it. Then my great love found me and gave me a new life. Each day he coaxed me out of my dual prisons: the shell I'd formed around my heart and the madness for blood that plagued my newborn brain.

My heart swelled to sizes I'd never before imagined when I was finally able to see him as my savior. He gave me back the world,and shared with me his love and his son. He made us a family in every sense of the word. How we loved each other, Carlisle and I! Even when Edward left for a time I had faith in my heart that he would return to us. We each needed our little family. It was ingrained within our very souls.

When we were whole again we'd added to our coven. First Carlisle found Rosalie, and then she found Emmett. When Alice and Jasper joined us we felt complete. Seven people all living for each other. Helping each other. Needing the love and support that only a true family could provide. It was like that for many years and I remember them fondly.

I thought I had all the children we would ever welcome into our home. They were everything to me. They were my own, and couldn't have been anymore my children if I'd borne them from my own body. When Edward found Bella I had a new daughter to love. Once more I thought we were complete.

My son surprised me again by giving me a grand-daughter, something I'd never even dreamed to hope for. Something that seemed too impossible to even dream. She brought me such joy with her child's wisdom and her fascination with the world. She showed me the world again, as though for the first time despite my one hundred years.

How happy we were in those new days. Our family larger than I'd ever dreamed. Our house filled with laughter, and new friends in Bella's father and the wolves. I thought surely that nothing could break us. We felt invincible within our love.

Then the Volturi came, and we fought to protect our way of life.

We fought with our friends and our family. The wolves stood by us. There were more of them than I'd even known existed. I pulled at my heart to know that the presence of so many of our kind had brought more young men to fulfill their lineage and take the wolf form. So many children in the path of such violence was hard to bear.

Bella fell first, and our outrage was swift. I could feel a ferocity that had been long absent within me build to a fevered pitch. I fought many of the Volturi Guard to the death. My instinct took over my mind and I became the killing machine my DNA dictated. I sought my opponents weak points and took them down, one at a time.

The battle ended in a stalemate. Aro and Marcus had survived, as had a good number of their Guard, but Caius, Jane, Alec, Demetri and Felix, almost their entire inner circle, had been killed. They backed away with no promises of peace, and we did not offer any of our own. We watched as they moved backward, their wary eyes never leaving us. When they disappeared from our view we relaxed our collective protective stance to count our dead.

I found Carlisle first. There was no spark of life within him. Parts of him were missing, burned I assumed. I sat and stroked his still, stone face in silence. There were no tears within me. I do not know how long I sat with him before Carmen led me away.

Our side was decimated. Carlisle, Bella, Edward, Tanya, Emmett, Eleazar. Gone from this world. Dead too were many of the wolves, though Sam and Leah were the only names I knew among their dead. Kate told me later that she and Garrett crossed the line with the survivors to help them carry their dead. No one among the tribe had stopped her at the border. She'd fought within their ranks and was one of them now. The ancient feud between our kinds was over.

The remaining vampires gathered in our home. Rosalie, Jacob and Renesmee had fled. Though I could see it was the only way to protect Renesmee, it tore shreds from my heart to be without my grand-daughter. Especially after the loss of her parents. I could nearly feel her pain on top of my own. I yearned to find them, but I was not ready for such a journey. I gathered a few family possessions before I left for Alaska with Kate, Carmen and Garrett who decided to give up human blood and join the Denali coven.

I took the photo album of Renesmee that Alice and Rosalie had made, a scrapbook of photos Bella had assembled when she was still human and the poem Carlisle had written me for the day of our wedding. I knew it line for line, word for word, but holding the paper he once held let me feel him in his absence.

_But for you, I was only half._

_ But for your smile, I was steeped in sadness. _

_ But for your love, I knew not grace._

_ Because of you, I am blessed. _

For some time the four of us made a life in the wilds of Alaska. Carmen and I tended each other's wounds from the loss of our mates. While we were together we seemed almost whole. As love blossomed between Kate and Garrett I became unable to witness their devotion to one another. I wished them well and took my leave. I wandered the world, and visited all of the places Carlisle and I had seen together. I wrote him postcards at each stop, to tell him how things had changed since our first visit and to remind him of how much I loved him still.

By the time I realized I was headed toward Rio, had a separate suitcase filled with letters and cards for my lost love.

I steered the boat deftly toward the tiny dock Carlisle had built from palm trees so many decades before. It looked as though someone had mended it, and I thanked them silently for their attention so I did not have to walk through the water.

As I approached the house I heard a voice that had been missing from my life for many years. My heart sang with the joy of it.

"She's here!" she trilled. "She's finally here!"

Alice flew from the door to meet me with Jasper close behind. As we embraced I felt as though I would explode with joy. A light that had been absent my heart since I lost my love was slowly returning. More familiar faces streamed out into the moonlight to greet me.

Rosalie pulled me into a hug and held me tight to her.

"I've missed you so Rosalie!"

"I missed you too, Mom." She whispered in my ear, "Did he suffer?"

But of course she would ask! If Emmett had been alive he would have come to her.

"No, my darling it was quick. And I am certain his thoughts are still of you, where his soul is now."

"Thank you," she whispered and turned me toward the house. "There's someone you should meet."

I turned to see that the cottage, which had once been a hideaway for my Carlisle and I, was now a family home. Towering in the doorway was Jacob Black, a decade older than he'd looked when I'd last seen him. In front of him stood a breathtaking young woman with a tiny boy in her arms.

His skin was only slightly lighter than his father's, but much darker than the granite colored arms encircling his tiny waste. He grinned widely as his mother put him down, and he raced to meet me. His curly bronze hair reminded me of one of my own lost sons as I knelt to embrace him. He had his mother's, and grandmother's, chocolate brown eyes.

"Welcome home, Grandma," Nessie said as she followed her son's path across the sand. "Edward is very excited to meet you."

* * *

**Was it HEA enough for you? ****Your reviews are my sandy beach and I would truly love to know what you thought.**

******Edit note: Nov 20, 2010 - I've notcied a pretty decent spike in traffic in the last few weeks, which is odd as the story hasn't been updated. If someone req'd me I'd love to know so I could thank them. If you have a second to leave a comment I'd really appreciate it. Thanks. xo. Bets **


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